


Ride On, Stranger

by katalizi



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ego, Amnesia, F/M, Inhumans - Freeform, Memory Loss, Philinda - Freeform, Romance, Undercover, brain washing, watchdogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-09-15 22:09:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9259523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katalizi/pseuds/katalizi
Summary: Alternate ending and sequel to 'Shadows and Shapes', although you don't need to read that for this.Heidi Wang and Charles Upfield are neighbours and friends, living completely ordinary lives with no idea of what happened to them in a former life ... until that former life comes back with a vengeance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, remember when I said I'd publish my alternate ending for Shadows and Shapes ....... like, a year ago? Yeah, good times.
> 
> Originally S&S was going to have a very dark ending, that would've probably led to a sequel, but after a poll I found most people preferred a happy ending ... and honestly, I did too. I had planned to simply write the alternate ending, but then it just wasn't coming out the way I liked and then ... life.
> 
> I found it much easier to write a whole new story, using S&S as a springboard, but also enjoying writing something completely different, too.
> 
> And I hope you like it as well!

 

 

 

 

 

_Even though she knew the room was completely silent Skye could feel a consistent, oppressive ringing in her ears, as if she’d just been standing in the middle of a massive crowd that had suddenly disappeared. It was a painful silence, sharp and almost unbearable, but she couldn’t yet bring herself to seek company. She sat on the edge of her unmade bed, shoulders hunched, eyes open, dry and unseeing. Her weakened and bloodied hands were resting limply on her knees, palms up. She was alone in her quarters, her room exactly as she’d left it, untouched by the attack that had severally crippled part of the base and had led to the abduction of …_

 

_… she couldn’t think of that._

 

_She couldn’t think of anything._

 

_There was a timid tapping at her door. She didn’t say anything, didn’t call for them to enter or to go away. After a few more moments of silence the tapping came again, a bit more insistent this time, and in the back of her shell-shocked mind Skye knew that this deserved some sort of response, some sort of answer. However, deep within her there was such an awful, gnawing sadness that she was keeping at bay behind a very thin wall of detachment, and she knew that if whoever was outside her room somehow made it in, that wall would shatter and she would be overwhelmed._

 

_The tapping came again. She didn’t want them to come in. She didn’t have the strength to send them away. Like a glacier breaking apart she felt something within her begin to crack and crumble and knew that she was absolutely powerless to stop it._

 

_Finally, the door swung open and a wounded Trip limped into the room, closing the door softly behind him and then leaning against it. Skye could just see him out the corner of her eye, though she didn’t raise her face to his or move at all. For a moment — or maybe a lifetime — the two of them stayed completely still, frozen and safe for just this one moment of time. If they didn’t talk about it, it wasn’t real. If they didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t happen. Then Trip limped over to her side and gently lowered himself onto the bed, his body just brushing against hers._

 

_And she crumbled._

 

 

**_Eighteen Months Later_ **

 

 

“Gaaaahhhhh!”

 

Charles Upfield made the most undignified sound as he half-stumbled, half-burst into his apartment buildings lobby, a nasty gust of icy wind and driving rain close on his heels before he managed to slam the door shut. His trusty umbrella was now a twisted mess and he himself looked like he had swum home rather than walked the two blocks from the train station. “Gah,” he muttered, more softly this time, looking down sadly at his sorry state. His shoes were water logged, his bag and everything in it was probably just the same, and he could feel uncomfortably icy droplets of water running down his face and off the end of his nose.

 

Just then he heard the softest tinkling laughter coming from the mailboxes.

 

He knew who it was before he even saw her face and, despite himself, started to feel the beginnings of a soft smile. Maybe his day wouldn’t end so terribly after all. Quickly swiping a hand over his face in an attempt to get rid of some of the water — and then realising how utterly useless that movement was — Charles ducked into the small room next to the lobby that held the mailboxes, shoving his broken umbrella into the nearby bin. Just inside, looking absolutely immaculate as always, was Heidi Wang. She was just locking up her own box, a collection of small, white envelopes held loosely in one hand while a shiny and expensive bag from a designer Charles might vaguely recognise hung from the crook of her elbow. She quickly gave him the once over and raised one eyebrow appraisingly.

 

“Gah?” she repeated flatly. “You never cease to amaze me with your knack for understatement.”

 

“Oh, it’s not as bad as it looks.”

 

“Really?”

 

“No, that’s a lie. I was this close to drowning out there.”

 

Heidi laughed again and Charles’ smile widened. There was something about Heidi’s laugh that made Charles want to do … things. Poetic things. Write a song, climb a mountain, ask a beautiful woman out on a date …

 

“Oh no!” said Heidi suddenly, her expression changing to concern in an instant. “What about your phone? Do we need to get a bag of rice or …?”

 

Charles grinned as he reached into his jacked and pulled out his phone — which had been conveniently placed in a sealed bag.

 

Heidi’s look became delighted. “You put your phone in a zip lock bag? You’re such a boy scout.”

 

“Oh yeah, because everything about this just screams ‘prepared’,” said Charles as he sarcastically gestured to himself. But somehow it all didn’t matter to him as much as it had a few minutes ago, not when he had somehow managed to bump into Heidi and make her laugh …

 

_Ask her out, you idiot. C’mon! ‘Heidi, how would you like to eat food with me, romantically?’ Dammit Charles, stop acting like the kids you teach and just ask the lady!_

 

And for a split second his courage rose and he opened his mouth to say, “Heidi, how …?”

 

Her smile faded and her gaze became focused. Too focused. He faltered.

 

“ … how did you avoid Noah’s flood? You look — I mean, you look … dry.” _Man, if I could kick my own ass, I would._

 

“Oh!” Her smile rose but her gaze dropped, and for a split second Charles thought he might’ve seen a flash of disappointment. Maybe. Probably just wishful thinking. “A colleague dropped me off, right at the door.”

 

“That was nice,” said Charles lamely, falling into step besides her as the two of them made their way to the elevator, actually aware of how his shoes squelched in time to the click of her high heels. Just before the doors closed on them Charles stole one last side-long look at Heidi and quietly offered up, “I really like that dress.”

 

Heidi’s eyes met his and she smiled in thanks, before once again facing forward and fiddling with her letters. They travelled upwards to their floor in silence and it was only when he was about to enter his apartment that Heidi spoke.

 

“You know, after you’ve wrung yourself out you should come by mine. I’ve got some leftovers that need to be polished off and … and I could use some pleasant company.” Her tone was light and casual, but if he wasn’t mistaken he could sense a touch of nervousness threading its way though her, and that confused him. They’d had dinner together plenty of times, so her request wasn’t unusual. _Oh yeah, you’ve had dinner, but you’ve never had a nice dinner somewhere other than your apartments, have you?_

 

“Hard day?” he asked, deciding to dismiss whatever was going on there just for the moment.

 

Heidi shrugged, her smile becoming more of a grimace. “You could say that.”

 

“Then I’ll bring the whiskey and sympathy,” he said, unlocking his front door.

 

“Thanks Charles,” she said warmly, as if _he_ were somehow doing her a favour. “See you in … I dunno? Forty minutes?”

 

“It’s a … thing I will do.” He’d almost said _‘its a date’_ and had nearly choked changing the wording at the last second. _Smooth_.

 

With a parting nod and smile, Charles entered his darkened home, shut the door and leant heavily against it, blowing out a long sigh. His wet clothes stuck to him uncomfortably and now that Heidi wasn’t around to distract him, he began to shiver in earnest. He made his way further into his apartment, not even bothering to turn on a light as he dumped his bag on the kitchen counter and began to strip down. The only noise came from the incessant rain beating against his balcony window and the odd wail of wind that circled the building.

 

Suddenly he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He paused, dispassionately studying his face. He looked old. He felt old. He felt … less.

 

A tiny, tinny voice of logic rang out in the depths of his mind, telling him to stop being so melodramatic. It started listing all the good points in his life; his job, his home, his friends, his wonderful, kind, beautiful neighbour who maybe, possibly felt something in return … and all this fell flat. It was almost like watching a student haltingly present their findings entirely in bullet form. Facts without evidence. Structure without support. His life felt hollow. He felt hollow.

 

And this wasn’t a new or unusual feeling. For months now Charles had been feeling not so much that something was missing, but rather that he himself wasn’t where he was supposed to be. That he was meant to _be more_ than a lecturer at a collage, that he was meant to _do more_ than just the routine day-to-day necessities that everyone else did. That there was something that wasn’t quite right with the state of the world …

 

Suddenly a particularly strong gust of wind made his windows rattle and that noise broke him out of his revery. He snorted softly and shook his head at himself. _Looks like your mid-life crisis is about to hit, buddy_ , he thought. _Everyone in the world at some point feels like their meant to do more, Charles. You’re simply an old man with regrets. Like most other people walking this planet. Get over yourself._

 

But in the bleary half light of his lonely home he couldn’t quite keep that sense of misplacement at bay.

 

 

* * *

 

_Skye cried. She cried til her throat ached and her gut clenched, til her face was a ruin of tears and spit and snot, til she had no more tears left in her. And the whole time Trip simply held onto her, held her close, held her warm and safe while his own tears ran silently down his face._

 

_Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, she managed to gasp out two words. “They’re … dead!”_

 

_“Shh,” murmured Trip, his fingers stroking through her hair._

 

_“They’re dead!” she repeated, stronger this time. She pushed against Trip as she sat back upright, but her gaze was still unfocused, her breathing was rapid and she seemed close to a panic attack. “They’re dead, Trip. They’re dead, and they’re gone, and we could’ve saved them —”_

 

_“Sh, you know that’s not true.”_

 

_“We could’ve saved them! We could’ve! We could’ve. We should’ve … should have been faster … should’ve listened … I should have … I should’ve … I … I …” Skye’s speech became a stilted, gasping monologue intermingled with hiccups and tears and a desperate tension that had nowhere to go. She couldn’t breathe, she could only think of everything she hadn’t done …_

 

_Trip’s warm hands suddenly reached up to cup her face, bringing her eyes up to meet his and as she looked into his eyes she felt … not a sense of calm so much as an anchor. Trip was real and solid and not about to let her drown in this relentless ocean. Suddenly she could breathe again._

 

_“Now you listen to me,” he said softly, once he was sure she was focused on him. “We did everything we could. You know that. And May and Coulson knew that too.” At the mention of their names Skye gave a little moan as fresh tears sprung to her eyes. “Sh, baby. We both heard what they said, at the end. They wrote the playbook on how to get out of bad situations and if even they …” He trailed off, remembering …_

 

_It had taken the better part of two days to dig through all the rubble and finally recover Coulson and May. When they had found them, crushed, dust covered, and still twined together in each others arms, Skye had collapsed. Coulson was already dead, and while May’s heart was still beating when they pulled her out, it was a weak and thready beat that didn’t even last the journey to the plane. All the while, as he worked, Trip couldn’t help replaying their final words over and over again in his mind._

 

“There’s no way you can find us in time. If you stay, you die and I … we … we couldn’t bear that.”

 

“And don’t ever wonder if there was something more you could’ve done, because there isn’t. Get out. Make S.H.I.E.L.D. greater than it was. Live long lives. You … you all made mine so much more than it could’ve been. So … thank you.”

 

_“Coulson said there was nothing that could’ve been done,” he finished. “They knew it. You know it. Skye,” his voice softly broke as he whispered her name. “Skye …” He could see the unwilling acceptance in her eyes and knew in that moment that she was going to heal from this. Eventually. Somehow. And all he could do in the meantime was simply be there for her._

 

_She was pliant as he pulled her close to him, her shaking arms coming up to wrap around his back as she sought to give comfort after taking it, and together the two of them sat in silence with the faintest smell of dust and gunpowder still lingering in the air._

 

* * *

 

Heidi groaned as she kicked off her heels, switched on the lights and managed to fling her handbag on a nearby table all in one smooth motion. She knew she looked good in heels and also knew that regardless, she was required to wear them at work anyways, but there was still nothing quite like toeing them off at the end of the day. Well, almost …

 

In less than ten minutes she’d shed her form fitting, stylish but not too-stylish-for-work dress and was now comfortably wearing yoga slacks and a tank top, her hair loosely done up in a ponytail. It always felt good to come home and strip off her accountant-for-a-large-firm persona. She never really felt like she looked like herself. _Charles said he liked the dress._

 

Heidi rolled her eyes at herself and went to the kitchen, opening the fridge and random draws in preparation for her most skilled cooking accomplishment — the ability to heat things up just right. Without even thinking she pulled out the glass that she had somehow come to regard as Charles’ favourite. She paused a moment, studying it, her thoughts dancing around the man who lived just down the hallway from her.

 

He’d moved into apartment 815 just a week after she herself had arrived, and from their very first meeting the two of them had just seemed to fall into step with one another with a comfortable familiarity that was beyond explanation. It wasn’t like they had an overwhelming amount in common; in fact, on paper they seemed to be almost too different to allow for any sort of relationship, with her as the highly efficient and somewhat cold accountant who spent her days mostly alone in a quiet office, and Charles as a beloved history professor at the local collage. But instead of alienating them, their differences became nothing more than complementary aspects of each other. It was as if she had known him for much long than a year, as if she’d somehow managed to find a friend from a past life. A friend … or maybe …

 

A knock at the door jolted Heidi out of her thoughts, and she quickly shoved the glass back in the cupboard before darting over to let Charles in. He looked a lot better this time, clean, dry, and dressed in equally comfortable clothes that almost seemed to match hers. He was carrying the aforementioned bottle of whiskey and when he handed it over to her with his usual shy smile she couldn’t help the little swoops and dives her stomach did. Her mind went back to earlier this evening, when they’d met at the mailboxes and he’d been soaking wet and still smiling and still so adorable and almost, _almost_ on the verge of saying something … she thought he was going to say something … she wished he would …

 

 _Or_ you _could, Heidi. Nothing stopping you._

 

“Make yourself at home,” she said, standing back and letting him enter. “Food’s almost done warming up.”

 

“Yum,” said Charles with a wink, before wandering over to the kitchen — he always looked so right in her kitchen — and then proceeding to pull out the glass she’d been toying with only seconds ago. Heidi grinned and shook her head. She’d known he’d choose that one. She knew him. She could ask him … there was nothing holding her back …

 

_But there is something stopping me. Something. I don’t know what. It feels like there’s something missing. Like I’m not supposed to take that step. But … but if he asked me, I wouldn’t say no. Or would I? Should I?_

 

“Heidi?” The sound of Charles’ voice made her look up, and she saw him gazing at her, somewhat concerned. “You seemed a little lost in your thoughts there,” he said gently. “Where did you go?”

 

“I was just thinking about today,” she lied smoothly. _Yeah, I don’t think either of us are ready for that conversation. Charles, I like you and I want you, but I also feel like I shouldn’t or couldn’t for some reason, and I sure hope that won’t damage our friendship!_

 

Thankfully, Charles took her at her word. “Yeah, you did mention it was a little rough.” He got out a second glass and proceeded to pour a finger in each of them, handing one to her. “What happened?”

 

Heidi sighed and pulled up a stool on one side of the kitchen bench while Charles leaned on the other. She took a small sip of her whiskey, and that added to the aroma of heated food and the calming presence of Charles’ company helped relax her. “Well, it wasn’t — it was just — _weird_. Unsettling.”

 

“A client?”

 

“No …” Heidi sighed again and took another sip. “When I got in this morning I was taken straight to security, where my boss was also waiting for me. Seems that last night someone had hacked the company, but the only thing that was touched were any and all cases that I had worked on. And my personal files.”

 

“Good Lord,” said Charles, a mildly horrified frown nearly a perfect mirror of her own face when she’d been told this early that day. “Did they know why?”

 

“Not a clue,” said Heidi, shaking her head. “And that led to a three hour interrogation. I mean, that I can understand, as it was obvious that I was the target of the hack, but we just couldn’t figure out _why_.”

 

“Still no idea?”

 

“None,” she shook her head, still a little dazed. “And then of course I had to make sure that nothing else of mine had been hacked and so the day was pretty much taken up by all that.” She bit hard on her lower lip for a moment before downing the last of the whiskey and motioning for Charles to give her a refill. “I mean, nothing’s been stolen or changed. For all intents and purposes, it seems like someone just wanted to have a look at what I specifically was doing in that company. Still … there’s just something so _unsettling_ about knowing that someone’s been rifling through your data like that.”

 

“I get that,” said Charles sympathetically as he topped up her drink. “Are the police involved?”

 

“Yes, and … S.H.I.E.L.D too.”

 

“S.H.I.E.L.D.?” repeated Charles, eyes wide. Heidi knew he wasn’t a fan. No-one really was, and ever since they’d crawled back out of the shadows with a shinny new director last month she’d had this gut-twisted feeling that something terrible was going to follow in its wake. It always seemed to. “What on earth were they doing there?”

 

“They’re not all bad,” she said. Sure, she didn’t like them, but she couldn’t really fault the two agents who’d been sent to go through everything with her that day. They’d been nice enough, two young British kids who’d seemed awfully nervous, but she’d just attributed that to it probably being their first day on the job. “And the reason they got involved was because they said that, by the look of it, it seems very similar to other hacks they’ve seen. Hacks by … the Watchdogs.”

 

“What?” exploded Charles. “The Watchdogs? Aren’t they that terrorist group that’s all focused on hunting down those Inhumans?”

 

“Sure are,” said Heidi.

 

“Then what —?”

 

“I have no idea!” she said cutting him off before he was able to complete the same question she’d been asked numerous times that day. Then she caught the strange look in his eyes and unwillingly let loose a puffy laugh. “I’m not Inhuman, Charles.”

 

“Are you certain?” he asked, and suddenly she was only half sure he was joking. “Apparently it’s a dormant gene that doesn’t always show up —”

 

“I’m certain, I’m beyond certain!” she said, throwing up her hands. “They even tested me today to be absolutely certain, which was more than a little insulting, really. If I — or any member of my family — started spitting fireballs, don't you think I’d know?”

 

“Okay, okay,” said Charles, his tone softening. “Sorry.” But there was something about his stance that remained a little too rigid.

 

Heidi narrowed her eyes. “Why are you so concerned about whether or not I’m totally human?”

 

Charles scoffed and poured himself some more whiskey, the liquid sloshing around messily. “Oh, come on, Heidi. Even you must’ve seen the news. It was okay when it was just the Avengers, but now half of them have gone rogue while at the same time some contagion gets in the water and suddenly, anyone on the planet could turn into a weapon!” He snorted and took a large gulp or liquor. “Can you honestly tell me that doesn’t scare you, even a little?”

 

“No,” said Heidi flatly, her tone making Charles check his glass halfway and give her an incredulous look. “Anyone can be a danger, human or Inhuman, and yes, I do watch the news. There is zero evidence of an Inhuman threat. It’s all just fear mongering.”

 

“Fear mongering?” Charles now had a look of stark disbelief on his face, as if he couldn’t understand how Heidi could be so clueless. Heidi in turn felt her hackles rising. “I’m sorry Heidi, but  if you’re honestly not worried, then you don’t fully understand the situation.”

 

That sparked real anger within her. “What a wonderfully patronising way of putting it,” she returned, her voice icy.

 

Charles looked appropriately cowed at her tone, but even if he realised that he’d gone too far it didn’t stop him from going further. “Look, all I’m saying is that there’s a global crisis because of these Inhumans, which has lead to vigilante groups like the Watchdogs who, for some, have now targeted you! You should be worried!”

 

“I’m not going to panic over this!” said Heidi. “And I’m not going to hate on an entire group just because that’s what seems to be the fashionable thing to do right now. Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D. said everything was okay —”

 

“Oh yeah, and they’re to be trusted,” interrupted Charles.

 

“I’d trust their word over that of a bigot’s,” snapped Heidi. And regretted it the moment the words left her mouth.

 

They both froze. And even though only a few seconds passed Heidi knew with heartbreaking certainty that something was now deeply damaged between them. Because she made no move to apologise. And he made no move to deny it.

 

The moments of silence felt like eons. Finally, Charles pushed his drink away as he straightened up. “Well,” he said, his voice edged with mean spirited sarcasm. “I’m guessing this isn’t making your day any better.”

 

“It really isn’t,” she answered, just as tensely.

 

To that, he just pressed his lips tightly together, gave an odd half nod, and then showed himself out the door without another word.

 

As she heard the lock click smoothly back into place, Heidi let loose a deep sigh. Less than ten minutes ago she’d been thinking about how much she liked having her neighbour and friend around, specially at the end of such a strange day, and now she was overwhelmingly grateful to see the back of him. How in the hell had she missed that Charles had such cruel beliefs?

 

Because they’d never discussed anything like that, she realised. Ever. The Inhuman thing was such a recent phenomenon and not something you tended to bring up in an evening conversation, so she’d never actually learned of his stance on the subject before. And it wasn’t exactly like he was alone in his opinion either. It seemed like every time Heidi turned on the television there was some commentator or politician ranting about the dangers of Inhumans, most comments on any online article on the subject was rife with vile hatred and Heidi wasn’t completely unaware of how her workmates viewed the whole thing. But, funnily enough, it was this constant, senseless hate that had driven Heidi to the other end of the spectrum. She refused to be scared just because some noisy bigots told her to be, and while she’d never met an Inhuman herself she liked to think that she would do her best to help them in any way she could. She also knew, however, that this stance wasn’t exactly the popular one at the moment. She knew she was in the minority. So in all fairness it shouldn’t have come as such a horrible surprise to discover that Charles was just like everyone else. That he’d bought into the propaganda, too.

 

 _No,_ she thought. _It was still a surprise because it didn’t seem to fit him_. Like a costume that was two sizes too small, Charles’ anger on the subject seemed to hang about him in a way that was all wrong. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but deep in her gut she felt like this simply wasn’t Charles talking anymore. Like someone else had taken over the script.

 

It took her a while to realise that she was staring blankly at his glass, still half full. _None of that matters now_ , she though dully, her anger fading out. _It’s hard enough to fix a friendship after something like that. Let alone …_

 

The timer on the oven suddenly pinged, indicating that the food was ready. Heidi had never felt less hungry in her life.

 

* * *

 

_If Skye was certain of only one thing in her life, it was that the only thing more agonising than loss, was hope._

 

_“You can’t be serious,” she said quietly, thankful for Trip’s steading presence behind her. She knew she was trembling and wondered vaguely if it was showing. In front of her stood Simmons and Fitz, side by side once again as a unified, unmovable force. Off to one side, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed and her head bowed, was Bobbi. Her stance almost made it seem like she wasn’t paying attention to this insane conversation they were having but Skye knew there was nothing further from the truth._

 

 _Simmons had such a painfully hopeful look on her face that Skye wanted to scream, and she spoke with the exact, clipped tones of a scientist on the verge of an incredible discovery. “Carrington’s research is almost completely complimentary to our own. Where we’ve missed things, he’s somehow filled in the blanks, and with this added information I think … no, I’m_ certain _I can artificially re-create the GH325 serum.”_

 

_“How … how long would that take?” asked Skye slowly, dizzy with possibilities, trying desperately and reflexively to clamp down on the hope blooming in her chest. Don’t trust hope. Hope only disappoints. Hope is a liar._

 

_Simmons pulled up her shoulders in a shrug. “I’m not too sure. Not long, I should think. I have all the pieces, I just need time to put it all together. And for once, time is something that we seem to have. I mean,” and she started to stutter over the next part, “I don’t know too much about what happened to Coulson before but … from what I understand it was days before he received the first treatment —”_

 

_“You mean it was days between the time he died, to the time he was resurrected,” interrupted Bobbi, finally speaking up. She raised her head to confront everyone in the room, her face hard. “Calling it a ‘treatment’ seems a bit misleading, don’t you think? We’re not fixing an injury here, we’re talking about bringing people back from the dead. A practice that has proven to lead to insanity and death in the past.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe them. “You’re so excited about whether or not we can do it, none of you are even thinking about if we should.”_

 

_“Excuse me?” said Skye, her trembling gone in an instant as she turned to face Bobbi, crossing her arms over her chest. “Of course we should! We have the chance to save Coulson and May and you don’t —”_

 

_“You can’t save someone who’s already dead!” Bobbi pushed herself away from the wall to walk right up to the group. “Skye, I know this is a terrible time for you, but we can’t let our grief turn to madness!”_

 

_That struck a nerve with Simmons. “This isn’t madness, this is quantified scientific research!” she said with a bizarre mix of primness and anger._

 

_“But you should know that you cannot preform any sort of extreme experiment like this without considering the moral implications,” stressed Bobbi, and for the first time her hard facade cracked and Skye saw the woman hurting underneath. The woman who’d just lost her S.O. “Say we bring them back — what if something goes wrong? What if they don’t fully come back? What if we physically or mentally ruin something? What if —?” She suddenly broke off, tears shinning in her eyes. “What if, like so many other failed experiments, we discover too late that we’ve done something terribly wrong … and we have to terminate? Because don’t fool yourselves —” in turn she gave them all a fierce glance. “— if it comes to that … who do you think will have to make that call?”_

 

_And in a flash Skye realised that, with Coulson and May gone, Bobbi was now the director of S.H.I.E.L.D._

 

_This brought a sudden stillness to the room. After a few moments Trip spoke calmly and coolly._

 

_“Please don’t think that we’re doing this without considering everything,” he said. “We know the dangers and would never, ever have suggested this if we thought there was even a possibility of it not working out. Yes, there were problems with this program before … but that was before. I saw for myself the incredible effect GH325 had on Skye when we were told there was no hope, and look at her.” He waved a hand. “She’s perfect. Simmons is perhaps the world’s leading expert on this, we couldn’t have a better team. We need to do this.”_

 

_Bobbi seemed to deflated, and Skye realised that they had won the argument. Or maybe Bobbi realised that they were going to go ahead with this plan regardless. However, she couldn’t help one last parting shot. “There’s just something deeply, morally wrong with bringing people back from the dead.”_

 

_“With all due respect, ma’am,” said Trip. “It’d be wrong if we didn’t at least try.”_

 

_Skye would always remember with startling clarity how her heart had soared at Bobbi’s thin-lipped nod of acceptance. How, despite all the warning signs, she had allowed herself to believe that they were truly about to do the impossible. That they were going to defy death itself. How she foolishly gave herself over to hope._

 

_How she, of all people, forgot that hope was a damned liar._

 

* * *

 

The howling wind and rain had petered out by the following day to nothing more than a low, grey sky that was broken every now and then by passing showers. Charles, however, refused to trust this more gentle weather and had gone to work equipped with a brand new umbrella and a thick parka, just in case. His morning was filled with quiet routine, his students calm and attentive in the warm, dry lecture hall, the stress of essays and exams far enough in the future not to impact on the joys of learning at the present. Charles would never admit it to anyone, but he personally found exams to be distasteful. He believe that they forced kids to mimic, not learn, the weight of them sometimes destroying a students love of the subject altogether. Still, exams were a fact of life, and he would do his best to see his students survive them.

 

He didn’t think about his neighbour. Not once.

 

She certainly wasn't the first thing that came to mind, unbidden, when he woke up that morning, nor was the thought of her there when he stood in line for his morning coffee. She didn’t pop up at odd moments when he greeted his peers and students, when the whole class animatedly discussed the American Revolution, when he silently thanked ‘ _Hamilton_ ’ for getting students interested in the somewhat dry topic of the Founding Fathers. Nope. He didn’t think about her once.

 

He most certainly didn’t think about how she was right.

 

Charles didn’t actually spend a lot of time thinking about the Inhuman mess, but whenever it cropped up in conversation he always felt an overwhelming sense of fear and disgust. How anyone could deny that they were a terrifying plague on the world was beyond him. They literally called themselves ‘inhuman’; how much more obvious could they show their own disregard for _actual_ human life? Yes, he was afraid of them, but that fear had always seemed justified, rational. At least, in his mind it had been. Until last night.

 

After he had stormed out of Heidi’s apartment and back to his own cold, grey home, he had spent a good hour or so fuming. Turning their the conversation over and over in his head. Hating the fact that their friendship had had such a quick falling out. Wishing that Heidi wasn’t so ignorant, so trusting. Hating himself in turn for thinking like that and, as he examined his words, hating himself even more for talking to her in such a condescending way. And as he studied his feelings and their argument, some strange, uncomfortable notion started to sink into his bones that at first had seemed unrelated. Perhaps it was mixed with that odd sense of un-belonging he’d been struggling with for the past couple of months all tangled up with remorse and regret for starting a fight with Heidi but, for some reason, as he looked back at their argument, he started to feel less like he truly believed what he said about Inhumans and more like he was just copying what someone else had told him to say. He hated Inhumans. He’d never before wondered why.

 

_To pass the exam you have to mimic, not learn._

 

But he was hardly alone in his distrust. He’d never had to argue his point on the subject before as everyone around him either didn’t talk about it or completely agreed. Until Heidi. Until she challenged him, made him exam the ‘why’.

 

But it wasn’t like he was thinking of her.

 

He was clearing his desk as the last of his students from that morning lecture were just filtering out when he saw Dean Brady enter with two strangers close behind. One was tiny, the other massive, and they were both dressed what seemed to be a strange, black uniform. Charles paused in his movements, shooting a questioning look to Brady who seemed very nervous, almost frightened.

 

“What’s all this?” he asked suspiciously, his heart rate picking up.

 

Brady took a deep breath and stepped to one side as he introduced the strangers. “Charles, this is Agent Johnson and Agent Mackenzie. They’re from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

 

Charles felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. “S.H.E.I.L.D.?” he repeated, incredulous. Heidi yesterday, him today? There was no way that this was a coincidence, but he couldn’t yet fathom how they could be linked. He then realised that the agents were staring. Particularly the younger one, Johnson. She seemed to be struggling with something as she drank in the sight of him, tiny pieces of raw, painful emotion slipping out past her mask of professionalism. He could see it, but he couldn’t understand where in the hell this was all coming from and it all made him feel like … like … suddenly his inexplicable anger at the organisation rose and burst out. “What in the hell are they doing here?”

 

Maybe he imagined it, but he thought he saw Agent Johnson flinch.

 

“There was a security breach last night with our servers,” said Brady, his right hand tapping out a nervous rhythm against his leg. “But the only thing they went for was your records.”

 

“And let me guess,” said Charles, directing his attention at the two agents. “The people doing the breaching? They were the Watchdogs, weren’t they?”

 

“Wait, how did you know that?” asked Agent Mackenzie. But before Charles could say anything the agent answered the question for himself, with an eyeroll and a huffy, “Oh, because _she_ told you. Even when she was told not to say anything to anyone.” He shot a significant look at Johnson, who in turn seemed to be silently warning him against saying anything else.

 

“You’re talking about Heidi, right? Heidi Wang?” Suddenly Charles felt his fear peak at a whole new level. “Is she alright? She said yesterday that you lot told her everything was fine, that you’d taken care of it but, if I’m guessing correctly, doesn’t seem to have happened!”

 

“She’s fine,” said Agent Johnson, speaking for the first time … and suddenly it was as though a bell chimed. Like he was supposed to understand something. But then it was gone, lost to the stress of the moment. “But you’re right. Things are a lot more … complicated, than we thought.”

 

“Complicated, how?” asked Charles.

 

Johnson pressed her lips together and glanced at Brady. “Thank you for everything, Mr Brady, but at this point it’s probably better if you leave the room.” Her gaze softened as she saw the wide-eyed glance he exchanged with Charles. “It’s just that the less you know, the safer you’ll be. Don’t worry, we’re not about to slip a black bag over Mr Upfield’s head.” And then she smiled, as if at some personal joke.

 

“I’ll be okay, Jack,” said Charles quietly, even as he had no idea whether that would be proven to be true. He just didn’t want to get any more people in this mess than necessary. Impulsively he stuck out his hand and Brady shook it in farewell.

 

“Good luck,” said Brady, then he was out the door and gone.

 

Charles didn’t waste any time. “So what exactly is going on?” he asked as he gathered his personal belongings. Black bag or not, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to be making his afternoon classes.

 

“The terrorist group known as the Watchdogs have targeted both you and Heidi Wang over the past two days in two separate cyberattacks,” said Johnson briskly. “Although, so far, we can’t figure out exactly _why_.”

 

“You don’t have any theories?” asked Charles as they three of them started walking out of the building.

 

“Oh, we have theories,” said Mackenzie with strange significance, but when Charles shot him a questioning look he just shrugged. “Nothing concrete, though.”

 

“You’re not being watched,” said Johnson in what was supposed to be a comforting manner, but even the thought of being under terrorist surveillance was enough to make Charles’ skin crawl. “But while we’re fairly certain that there’s no Watchdog cells nearby, they are very mobile and almost impossible to track.”

 

“So what does that mean?” asked Charles, as they exited the collage and went straight into a waiting black van, the door slamming shut behind him.

 

“It means that we’re going to take both you and Heidi Wang into protective custody, right now.”

 

Charles sunk back into his chair, stunned. Everything was all happening so fast. Johnson seemed to notice this and put her hand on his arm, but the soothing manner of the gesture was lost on Charles, uncomfortable at this unwarranted familiarity. His mind flashed back to that strange, painful emotion Johnson had on her face when she first saw him, that emotion Charles didn’t quite have a name for …

 

“I know this is all a bit shocking for you right now,” she said. “We’re going to swing by your place briefly so you can pack a bag. It’s better if you have something … familiar around.”

 

“Thank you, Agent Johnson,” said Charles, but more out of social convention than any real feeling. He still didn’t trust S.H.E.I.L.D. or their agents as far as he could throw them, and Agent Johnson in particular was rubbing him the wrong way … but they did seem the better option next to a terrorist group that seemed to be hunting him.

 

“Please, call me Daisy,” she said, her smile a little too eager — and just like that, Charles had had enough.

 

“I’d rather not,” he said thinly, pulling his arm away from her touch and turning to resolutely stare out the tinted windows.

 

But in the reflection he couldn’t fail to miss Mackenzie’s sad eyes and Johnson’s crushed expression.

 

* * *

 

Hope is a liar.

 

What have we done? _was all she could think._ Dear God, what have we done?

 

_Skye felt very small and hollow as she sat at the far end of an expensive, expansive desk, almost disappearing into her padded, high backed chair. To her right sat Trip, still and silent. Not even he could offer her any sort of support now. Not when he was just as culpable, just as guilty as her. At the opposite end of the table Bobbi sat ram-rod straight, hands clasped knuckle-white in front of her, her face a mask. Mack, on the other hand, was slouched, chin resting on his chest, eyes averted. Just next to them sat a man Skye had never met before. Robert Gonzales. A man who was part of what she had been informed was the ‘real’ S.H.I.E.L.D._

 

_And so were Mack and Bobbi, apparently._

 

_Real S.H.I.E.L.D. Skye scarcely knew what was real anymore._

 

_Gonzales spoke in deep, calm tones that were, nonetheless, tinged with horror. That, Skye could understand._

 

_“What the hell were you thinking?”_

 

We thought it would work. We thought we could bring them back. We thought everything would be fine … we never thought that … that … _Skye couldn’t voice any of this. No-one did. Gonzales sighed._

 

_“You weren’t thinking, not rationally anyway.” He looked at Bobbi. “Where’s the main scientist who oversaw this procedure?”_

 

_Skye pushed herself even further back into her chair, but Bobbi managed to answer him with cool professionalism. “Agent Simmons isn’t well, sir. She’s been sedated and confined to her quarters.”_

 

As the hours and then the days stretched out, they all had to confront the slowly dawning, horrific realisation that this was it, that it wasn’t going to get better, that … dear God … it was actually going to get worse … Simmons frantically working non-stop, reviewing the procedure, retracing every one of the steps she took that led them all to the destination, searching, criticising, wondering, wondering, what went wrong? What did she do that was so terribly incompetent that it had brought this kind of failure …? Her beautiful mind not braking in one terrifying moment but rather being chipped and cracked over a painfully long time, Fitz and Skye watching from the sidelines, always there but unable to offer assistance … until last night when they found her, sitting helplessly amidst the wreckage of her lab, delicate equipment smashed and destroyed as she cried and raged and finally started to beg for forgiveness, over and over again, not even hearing them as they cried with her … the screaming and begging only ceasing with a needle in her neck … and even then, very softly, they could still here her murmuring, over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry … I didn’t know …”

 

_None of them knew._

 

_“ ‘Accursed creator … why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?’ ” muttered Gonzales, half to himself._

 

 _This caused a jolt of distaste to ripple around the table, leading Trip to say, “That’s hardly necessary …_ sir _.”_

 

_Gonzales just regarded him balefully. “Necessary or not Shelley is, at the very least, applicable.”_

 

_Skye shuddered. Applicable …_

 

Ten days. It had been ten days since they’d died and now Skye stood between two low tables, the cold, grey bodies of Melinda May and Phil Coulson stretched out on either side. They’d just be wheeled up from the morgue … they looked like they were sleeping … they looked unnatural and stiff …

 

“Firstly, we need to warm them up.” Simmons’ soft instruction nearly made Skye jump out of her skin, and then the tiny room was stuffed with people, Fitz, Trip, Bobbi, Hunter, all hurrying about with electric blankets and saline solutions, Simmons busy sticking needles into May and Coulson’s unresponsive arms. Every inch of the room was filled with a serious, strained intensity as the moment of truth crept closer and closer … they were going to bring the dead back to life … they had no idea what exactly was going to happen …

 

The whole world seemed to hold its breath as Simmons finally injected the strange grey-blue solution into the cadavers. For the first few minutes, nothing happened. Then, slowly, slowly, Coulson’s chest started to heave. Erratic twitches gave over to more rhythmic movement as lungs that had been still for ten days began to expand again.

 

“Oh my God,” breathed Skye, her hand vice-like on Trip’s arm. Talking, hoping, wishing to bring Coulson and May back from the dead was very different to actually witnessing it. To actually see a corpse start to breath again was … terrifying. Skye was suddenly terrified.

 

She felt her stomach heave as Coulson suddenly opened his eyes. There was still a strange film to them as they rolled around listlessly, focusing on nothing, seeing nothing. He seemed completely unaware. The body was alive again … but the mind …

 

“May …” whispered Trip. Skye dragged her frightened gaze away from Coulson to May. She still wasn’t moving.

 

“Did it work?” she asked, her hushed voice unbearably loud in the cramped, silent room. “Did it —?”

 

Without warning May sprung up, bolt stiff, wide-eyed, wild. She locked eyes with Skye.

 

And then she screamed.

 

_Back in the present Gonzales had an almost sympathetic look on his face, hidden somewhere beneath his thinly veiled disgust. “You played God, and it backfired,” he said simply. “And now we have not one, but two half-baked Lazarus’ on our hands.” He peered at Bobbi. “They’re both completely insane, aren’t they?”_

 

_Skye would never understand how Bobbi kept her composure. “Their cognitive responses have not matched their physical recovery,” she said tensely. “And as it’s been well over two weeks now, it doesn’t look like they ever will. So yes … they are insane.”_

 

_Skye closed her eyes, picturing May as she’d seen her not twenty minutes ago … screaming hysterically, throwing herself against the padded walls of the room she’d now been locked in, babbling in a mix of english, Chinese and garbled gibberish. And Coulson … Coulson just sat silent, unresponsive, unmoving wherever they’d leave him. But his eyes … every now and then his eyes would suddenly begin to track the movement of people who came into his room, as if he somehow understood what had happened and knew what they had done to him. Just once, he had looked directly at Skye and she’d suddenly been thrown back into a memory that was just as horrible._

 

Please let me die, please let me die …let me die. Let me die! Let me die!

 

_She hadn’t been able to make herself go back into his room again._

 

_Gonzales’ fingers drummed out a soft pattern against the table top as he thought. “The way I see it,” he said finally, “Is that we now have two options — which could also just be the one option altogether. Firstly; we terminate.” Even though she was expecting that, Skye felt a wave of despair wash through her. “Or, secondly, we re-set them.”_

 

_At this Skye blinked and sat up straight. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice horse._

 

_“I’ve read all of Coulson’s reports about project T.A.H.I.T.I.,” said Gonzales, focusing his gaze on Skye. “It seems that the only way to combat the madness was to wipe the subjects of all their old memories and implant new ones. And while this is obviously not the outcome any of us wanted, it may be the best one we have.” He gave another sigh and suddenly looked very old. “I’ve known Coulson and May for years now. They’re good agents … good people. At the very least, they deserve a second chance. But, you need to understand … if wiping their memories doesn’t work, then we’re back to option number one.”_

 

_“So we wipe them, give them new memories, and then throw them back out into the world?” said Skye slowly. “But … we won’t separate them, right? They’ll stay together?”_

 

_“Skye, we all know where you’re coming from, but even you must see there’s pretty harsh moral implications to giving people false memories and then setting them up in a life together,” said Bobbi. She paused in thought for a moment. “But we can resettle them near each other. And if something happens, it will be from their own free will and not determined by a pre-written script.”_

 

_“That sounds acceptable,” nodded Gonzales. “Doesn’t anyone have any objections?” When no-one spoke up, he continued. “I’ll need to run this by the board, but they should also be in agreement.” He stood up, slowly, stiffly, leaning heavily on his cane. “And as for this GH325 serum … I think it should go without saying that any and all research should be gathered up and locked in one of our deepest, darkest vaults.”_

 

_“Not destroyed?” asked Mack, surprised._

 

_“As awful as the outcomes are, it would be worse to destroy such incredible research,” said Gonzales. “It will never be used again, but it would also be foolish to discount the incredible, if flawed results that came from it. We should keep it on record.”_

 

_“Like the smallpox virus,” muttered Skye. Gonzales snapped his attention to her._

 

_“Exactly,” he said shortly, before exiting the room._

 

_That very evening May went into the machine and two days later came out as Heidi Wang. An accountant who liked nectarines, scruffy dogs and spending her weekends at art galleries. A stylish, personable woman who liked to laugh, enjoyed pranks with the enthusiasm of a child, and was free of any trauma. Coulson was next, but for some reason — maybe the fact that his brain had already been written over so many times — his transformation took a lot longer. The first session didn’t work at all and the second seemed only half done. They had come very near to addressing the unthinkable when Bobbi realised that they were making his new memories a little too close to his old ones, and those old memories were were using those similarities to make themselves know, to push to the surface. That’s when they stripped away some of his core traits. Where Phil Coulson was open, Charles Upfield was closed. Charles Upfield was a very careful, conservative man who didn’t care to indulge ‘otherness’. He was a man who believed in hard work over heroes and viewed those who strayed from the norm as dangerous and untrustworthy. With these fresh, contradictory personality traits now established, the third wipe and re-set stuck._

 

_And then that was it. They were lost back into the world and although there was constant, minimal S.H.I.E.L.D. surveillance, there was no need for anyone to actually approach either Heidi or Charles._

 

_And that was the last anyone ever saw of Melinda May and Phil Coulson._

 

_Months flicked past, the world kept turning, and things kept changing._

 

_Skye changed. Down to her every cell, every part of her changed. Inhumans, Afterlife, and Jiaying. Discovering a family … loosing a family._

 

_Discovering her name. Daisy Johnson._

 

_Jiaying attacked. Gonzales died. And of all people, Raina emerged as the new leader for the Inhumans and between her and Daisy, a peace was brokered between Afterlife and S.H.I.E.L.D. And Daisy lost her parents for a second time, wiped, re-set, relocated._

 

_Trip left. He’d seen too much at this point and after one too many close encounters and a call from his mother, he decided that he couldn’t do this any more. Daisy understood. But she herself had nowhere else to go._

 

_Simmons recovered. Simmons disappeared. And Fitz literally tore a hole in the universe to bring her back._

 

_Bobbi headed S.H.I.E.L.D. for a time as the director … but then, like Trip before her, she realised that this life just wasn’t hers anymore. She and Hunter left together, and were given a spy’s farewell._

 

_Inhumans started appearing all over the globe. The Secret Warriors were formed. There were those who wanted Agent Johnson to become Director Johnson, but she bulked at that and the role instead went to Jeffrey Mace, a shinny new Inhuman with a lot more power with the press and the heavy role of making S.H.I.E.L.D. accessible to the public again._

 

_And the whole time an accountant and a teacher lived out their normal little lives in complete ignorance._

 

_Until two days ago._

 

* * *

 

It was painful. It was more painful than she thought it would be.

 

For the first time in over a year Daisy was now within arms reach of Phil Coulson — and she had to constantly remind herself that he was not Phil Coulson. This was Charles Upfield. This was not only a complete stranger to her, but someone who instinctively distrusted her, her partner, her organisation and pretty much everything she stood for. She knew that. She’d been there when they’d forced those memories onto him eighteen months ago.

 

They shared the backseat of the van while Mack drove and all three sat in strained silence, Coul — Charles refusing to engage in any way. Daisy did her best not to fidget, constantly biting her tongue in an effort to stop any further attempts at a connection between the two of them. She had known this mission was going to be hard, but had assured Mace that she was more than capable and that she wouldn’t let personal feelings prevent her from doing her job. She had also made it abundantly clear that she was going to be heading the mission, regardless of what Mace said or did. Someone was targeting Coulson and May — or at least, their civilian counterparts — and after everything else Daisy had subjected them to she would be damned if she let anything destroy their normal lives now. So yes, she knew it would be hard, but she also knew that she couldn’t bear the idea of a total stranger taking on this task.

 

She could feel the bitter irony twist around inside her. To him, she was just a total stranger anyway.

 

They pulled up out the front of a residential building that Daisy knew well, but had never actually visited, and as soon as Mack cut the engine Charles had jumped out and was halfway to the entrance before Daisy managed to catch up. When he saw she was following him he gave her a look that was a mix between suspicion and irritation.

 

“What? Are you going to follow me everywhere?” he asked snappishly.

 

“Until we’re at a safe location, yes,” she answered with equal bite. She missed Coulson desperately and it was so difficult to see him like this … but the Charles guy that had replaced him was quickly getting on Daisy’s nerves. “I’m your bodyguard. Get used to it.”

 

Charles’ whole body went rigid with dislike and he didn’t say another word as they rode up the elevator to his apartment in stony silence.

 

When they exited on his floor Daisy was relieved to see Fitz and Simmons already there. It looked as if they were just about to leave because between them, just about to close her front door with one hand while the other held an overnight bag, was Melinda May. Daisy felt the air leave her lungs as she drunk in the sight of her former S.O., delighting in how she looked exactly the same in some ways and so completely different in others. Just like seeing Coulson out of his usual suit and dressed down in jeans and a jacket, seeing May wearing bright, loose fitting and rather stylish clothes was both jarring and, in some small way, delightful. Daisy was gutted that these two people weren’t in her world any more, but seeing how well they fit into their new lives almost made everything worthwhile.

 

May — Heidi spoke first. “Charles? What are you doing?”

 

“Same as you, by the looks of things,” said Charles. “My personal files were also hacked and now S.H.I.E.L.D.’s taking me in.” His eyes darting warily between FitzSimmons. “More agents?”

 

“This is Agents Simmons and Fitz,” said Daisy quickly, noting how they were both blatantly staring at Coulson and hoping that she hadn’t been quite so obvious. Turning to May, she introduced herself. “And I’m Daisy Johnson.”

 

“Heidi Wang,” she said, surprising Daisy by sticking out her hand in greeting. As she hesitantly shook it Heidi continued. “I don’t suppose you know anything more about what’s going on here?”

 

“Unfortunately not,” said Daisy. “And until we do, getting you two to a safe location is the best move right now.”

 

“Of course,” nodded Heidi, and just like Daisy was surprised at Charles’ reluctance, she was equally shocked at May’s quick compliance. _Not May, Heidi …_ “Thank you for all this.”

 

“Uh, Heidi?” Everyone turned to face Charles. “May I have a word with you? In private?”

 

Daisy was perplexed to see Heidi suddenly become very cool. “Surely it can wait.”

 

“No, not really,” said Charles tensely. Then he softened. “Please. It’ll only take a moment.”

 

Heidi hesitated, her eyes darting between the three agents. “It’s fine,” said Simmons quickly, answering her unasked question. “Just … make it quick, okay?”

 

“Of course,” nodded Heidi. Then with a look Charles cut his way through the agents and into Heidi’s apartment, quickly followed by Heidi herself who closed the door firmly behind her.

 

The moment they were out of earshot all three agents left in the hall let loose a massive collective sigh.

 

“Oh God,” moaned Fitz softly, leaning against the wall, his head thrown back. “This is so much harder than I thought it would be.”

 

“I know,” agreed Daisy, her hands shaking loosely at her sides.

 

“Well, they’re both healthy and well adjusted, and appear to have experienced no adverse side effects from the re-set …” Simmons started to rattle off, but at the looks she received from Fitz and Daisy she managed to halt her scientific nervous tic. Instead, she finished quietly by saying, “It’s … it’s still sad, isn’t it? That they can look at you … and see nothing.”

 

“Still …” said Daisy, staring at the closed door they’d just walked though. “It’s better than the other option …”

 

* * *

 

As soon as the door closed behind her, Heidi rounded on Charles. “Look, whatever you have to say surely —”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

This brought her up short. “Oh.” Now that they were away from the agents Charles’ whole body language had changed and slumped, and he seemed truly apologetic. Reflexively she started to answer, “It’s okay …”

 

“No, it’s not,” he said, hands twisting against each other. “The way I spoke to you last night was … it was insulting. And you were right. About what you said about me.”

 

Heidi felt her own shame wash against her. “No, no I shouldn’t have said that.”

 

“But you _are_ right.” Charles gave a small, sad smile and shrugged helplessly. “I’d never given it much thought, you know. Why I hate them.” They didn’t need to say who ‘them’ was. “And after what you said … well, it got me thinking in ways I never have before. So … I suppose I should be thanking you as well.”

 

Heidi answered his small smile with her own as she felt the tension between them slip away. “An apology and a thank you, all in one go? Should I be flattered?”

 

“If I was charming enough to flatter you, I’d never stop.”

 

Heidi’s eyes widened at this as electricity started to crackle around them. From the stunned look on Charles’ face he obviously hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but now it was finally, _finally_ out there it was clear he wasn’t about to back down now. _Please don’t back down …_

 

“I … I’ve been thinking about you. All day,” he started.

 

She was genuinely surprised. “You’ve been thinking about me?”

 

He smiled. “All day. Heidi … I don’t know what’s going on right now, or what’s about to happen but, if this is the last quiet moment we get then I just … I like you. A lot. For a long time. And you don’t have to say or do anything or —”

 

Heidi crossed the space between them in two steps, grabbed the front of his jacket, and kissed him. There was no hesitation from him, his arms quickly coming up to wrap around her as if they were always meant to be there, his hold strong and warm, his lips moving against hers in such a way that made her feel weightless, giddy, safe and just so, so … loved.

 

When she pulled back she was breathless and trembling, a wide smile breaking out as she looked into his now somewhat unfocused blue eyes. “Oh,” he said softly. “Oh … so … you’re okay with this?”

 

“More than okay,” she grinned, her hands snaking up to wrap around the back of his neck. “Definitely beyond okay.” But then she pulled back a little and almost laughed at the sudden look of loss that flashed over Charles’ face. “However … we do have three agents waiting outside for us and a safe house to get to, so …”

 

Charles gave a theatrical groan, his hands refusing to leave her waist. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he grumbled. “But as soon as we —”

 

She never found out what he was going to say. Because at that very moment a hole in the universe ripped open right there in her living room.

 

Both she and Charles gave a shout and stumbled back together, Charles quickly, instinctively pushing Heidi behind him as they stared in dumbfounded disbelief at the crackling, whirling vortex of noise and light that had just suddenly appeared. Then, even more incredibly, they started to make out a shape in that light moving towards them, a shape that quickly manifested into a dark skinned man with a mop of curly black hair. A man who seemed completely unperturbed to be standing in the middle of a reality defying phenomenon.

 

He was young, casually dressed, and seemed to regard the two of them with a mixture of sadness and resignation. “I know you’re probably not going to believe me,” he said in accented tones. “But I am really sorry about what’s coming next.”

 

Then he raised his hand, there was a flash of brilliant white light, and they were gone.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends part one of two.
> 
> In case you were wondering, the Inhuman at the end is Eden Fesi, otherwise known as Manifold who can bend time and space and make portals. He was teased in season 3 and I'm still waiting!
> 
> My original plan was to kill both May and Coulson in chapter 27 of S&S, have the team try to resurrect them, have it go very wrong, and then wipe both their memories and leave them with new personas to meet again in the outside world. So this is sort of that, but condensed. I hope you enjoyed that!


	2. Chapter 2

Heidi’s eyes stung from the sheer intensity of the hot, white light that enveloped her and Charles, and she felt a strange, intense pull, like gravity had suddenly decided to change directions multiple times. Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped, the light blinking out in an instant as a rush of cold, damp air enveloped her. She blinked rapidly at the sudden darkness, gasped and stumbled, her grip of Charles’ arm the only thing keeping her upright — until he was brutally torn away.

 

“Charles!” she cried out as she lost sight of him. She lost her footing completely and would’ve fallen if it wasn’t for the rough, harsh hands that suddenly appeared to grasp and pull, yanking her arms painfully behind her back and she was dragged along at such a pace that wouldn’t allow her to get her feet back on solid ground.

 

Heidi desperately tried to get her bearings, some sense of where she was, but all she could really determine was that she was in a wide, dark tunnel, surrounded by large, heavily armed men who were all dressed like a special ops section of the armed forces. But as her feet dragged along behind her and the muscles in her arms screamed out in protest at the painful treatment they were receiving she could see nothing that would indicate that these people were in any way official. Suddenly the man walking in front of her stopped and turned, and she only just managed to clamp down on a scream that threatened to bubble up — the man was wearing a terrifying mask. A mask that looked like a horrifically mutated dog.

 

In a flash she realised who had abducted them.

 

The punishing dragging halted suddenly and Heidi was finally able to get her feet back on solid ground, although the tight grip on her arms didn’t let up an inch. After a few moments of wild, panicked searching she finally located Charles, just a little way from her, also being held back by two massive, heavily armed, dog-masked goons. He had an equally frightened look on his face that softened slightly as his eyes met hers, and she in turn felt some of her own fear fade. She was still more terrified than she’d ever been in her life, but at least Charles was here with her. She felt that as long as he stayed with her, she could at least bear whatever was about to come next.

 

The masked man in front of her hefted his rifle up slightly, more to draw attention to the weapon than from any real need for adjustment, and Heidi snapped her eyes away from Charles to this bastard. She had a sneaking, sick feeling that this man would not tolerate any sort of resistance.

 

The man started to speak in an oddly formal way, his voice muffled but no less menacing as he recited his charges. “Philip Coulson and Melinda May. You are now under the jurisdiction of the Watchdogs, the last and only line of defence agains the Inhuman menace that has swept the globe, assisted by a corrupt government and sanctioned by the puppets of those in S.H.I.E.L.D. . You have both been found guilty of the crime of not only betraying you own nation, but your own species, and will meet your punishment accordingly. Your allegiance to the enemy means that you have forfeited any rights you might think you have, and you are now prisoners of America’s last patriots. You will obey.”

 

Heidi felt her mouth hanging open. _This can’t be real_ , she thought, her mind in a daze. _This can’t be happening …_

 

Charles was quicker to react. “Look, we have no idea what you’re talking about! Please, we’re not —”

 

Heidi finally let loose a shriek as the man in front of her took a single step forward and brutally swung his rifle down to slam the butt of it against Charles’ head with a sickening crack. Charles’ head snapped downward with the force of the blow and his whole body went limp as he lost consciousness.

 

“No!” she cried out before she could stop herself, and in the next moment regretted it deeply as the masked man slowly turned to face her, raising the barrel of the rifle to point it directly at her face.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said silkily, creeping closer like some sort of animal of prey. “Did you happen to say something?” Heidi felt her insides freeze as the very tip of the barrel brushed against the side of her face, pushing back a loose strand of hair, the stretched features of the masked face inches in front of her own. She was too terrified to move, to speak, to even blink. After a few petrifying moments the man seemed satisfied with her response and pulled away, Heidi drawing in a trembling breath as he did. “Didn’t think so,” he said, the cold triumph in his voice suddenly pulling another emotion out of Heidi — hatred. Pure, white hatred. She’d never hit anyone in her life, never even wanted to, but now completely without warning her mind’s eye provided her with a vision of her above that bastard, punching him until that disgusting mask shattered and pieces of it became embedded in that face he was hiding …

 

Heidi felt a wave of dizziness hit her. Where in earth had that thought come from? A vision of sickening violence, of her _acting out_ such violence … what was happening to her?

 

“Hey! Freak! Get here!” the man in the mask called out, and for a split second Heidi was confused as to who he was talking to before the same black man who’d appeared in her apartment stepped forward. He looked even younger and more vulnerable as he was surrounded by hulking, heavily armed goons, so Heidi was surprised to see an open, sour look of undisguised disgust on the young mans face as he walked slowly up to the front. Then it dawned on her that he might be under some sort of duress, as he clearly didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the crowd. The masked man, who seemed to be in charge, jerked his head towards her. “Open up their cell.”

 

Heidi thought this was an odd request to make of the young man. Why did he have to be the one to open their cell? And another thing — there were no doors nearby at all. So what …?

 

In the next moment she let loose an astonished gasp as the young man lazily waved his arm and a hole suddenly appeared right in front of her. It was like a tear in the universe, and through it she could see a whole other room. _He’s Inhuman_ , she suddenly realised. _He’s an Inhuman who can … make portals? Why are the Watchdogs working with an Inhuman?_

 

But that was as far as her musings went, because in the next moment she felt the hands on her arms change slightly before she was unceremoniously thrown through the portal into the strange new room, her hands unable to come in front of her in time so she hit the floor chin first, pain bursting up as she felt the skin break and tear, thick, warm blood beginning to roll down her neck. She rolled over as she heard a heavy thump next to her, and saw that Charles had been thrown in too, and then only caught one last glimpse of the other side of the portal, of strangers in strange masks glaring down at her, before there was a crackle in the air and the whole thing snapped shut.

 

A ringing silence followed, and for a moment all Heidi could hear was her own breathing. Deep, trembling gasps that started to become punctured with small, barely contained sobs as her brain finally had a few moments to catch up on what the hell was happening. What the hell _was_ happening? Her whole body began to shake with fear and unused adrenaline as she turned to Charles’ prone shape where he had been dumped on his front same as she had been, but had seemed to fair a little better than her. Well, he was still unconscious, but that appeared to be the worst of it. Slowly, moving as if in a dream, she managed to turn his body over so he was laying on his back, an ugly, bloody, purple lump already rising on one side of his head. She cast her eyes helplessly around the room they were in; it was plain concrete, circular, about eight metres wide and completely lacking any sort of door. The walls were very high with windows right at the top, way out of reach. There was a single wire-framed bed with a thin mattress in the middle of the room, but with Charles’ dead weight and Heidi’s own strength almost drained from unspeakable fear it might have been in the next city.

 

Not truly knowing why, only knowing that she needed to keep moving, needed to do something to try and control this situation, Heidi crawled around Charles until her back was against the rough wall, her legs stretched out in front of her and, after some heaving, she managed to pull Charles up close to her, carefully resting his head in her lap.

 

And then for some bizarre reason, she wanted to go to sleep.

 

She fought this urge. What if _they_ suddenly came back? She shuddered at the idea of having one of those monsters shaking her awake or — even worse — coming and taking Charles away from her as she slept. She felt another wave of fear crash upon her as she imagined waking up in this room all alone. To try and pull her thoughts away from such things she instead focused on Charles’ face. He looked pale and she knew that when he woke up he would be battling one hell of a headache, but if he was here. He was here with her and she knew he would be able to make all this — whatever the hell this all was — bearable. One hand bundled up the end of her jacket sleeve which she then pressed to the bottom of her chin in an attempt to stem the slow flow of blood that was coming from there, while the other began to softly stroke his hair, a soothing gesture that was more for her than it was for him.

 

Suddenly she caught a glimpse of her wristwatch. Only ten minutes had passed since they were in her apartment. Since they had kissed.

 

Ten minutes ago she had finally kissed her sweet, kind, handsome neighbour. And now the both of them were bleeding and imprisoned somewhere that didn’t have any doors, taken far away from their homes by a loathsome terrorist group. A terrorist group that had clearly made a huge mistake and confused them with someone else. 

 

And Heidi couldn’t help it. She began to weep.

 

* * *

 

 

Ten minutes ago, in the hallway just outsider of ‘Heidi Wang’s’ apartment, Daisy, Simmons and Fitz had been waiting in an uncomfortable silence for Coulson and May’s alter-egos to re-emerge when they’d heard a strange, muffled crackling noise come from the other side of Heidi’s door.

 

“No,” breathed Daisy, her heart dropping like a stone, and even as she raised her arm to blast the door wide open she knew they were already too late.

 

The three of them charged in just in time to see a flash of white light, nothing more. The air around them seemed somewhat charged, like lightning had just struck, but there was now no sign of Charles or Heidi. They had completely vanished into thin air.

 

“No!” repeated Daisy, louder and stronger this time, looking around the room wildly as if this might all be just a sick joke and Coulson and May would reappear once more. But she knew that this was just a very false hope. They were gone. They’d had them safe, and they’d lost them.

 

“Oh dear,” murmured Simmons, the simple expression filled with dread, while right next to her Fitz was already pulling out a small, modified tablet that he used to quickly scan the room.

 

“It was Fesi,” he said bluntly, but this only confirmed what they already knew.

 

“Dammit!” shouted Daisy suddenly in frustration, her hands curling into fists as she struggled against the urge to blast something into a thousand tiny pieces. “We had them, we had them safe!We should never had let them out of our sight!”

 

“This is Fesi we’re dealing with,” said Simmons in an attempt the placate her. “They could’ve been standing right in front of us and he would’ve still managed to take them. You know that.”

 

Daisy did know that. Knowing didn’t make it any better. They all knew of Eden Fesi, although none of them had actually met him yet. He was an Indigenous Australian Inhuman who had the ability to fold reality and space, creating bridges — portals — that allowed him to travel all over the globe in a way that was untraceable. He had barely been able to come to terms with his new powers before he was captured by the Australian Threat Unit and subjected to a whole host of tests. After S.H.I.E.L.D. had found and freed him he had chosen to live a low-key life while he explored his new abilities until a month ago, when he had disappeared. Since then his movements had been extremely erratic but with one very strong link — they all involved the Watchdogs.

 

“They could be anywhere by now,” muttered Daisy, half to herself.

 

“Silver lining,” said Fitz, his eyes fixed on his equipment. “This is the closest we’ve been when Fesi’s used his powers, so I’m getting some very clear readings right now. Much better than anything else we’ve had so far.”

 

“Enough to create an algorithm that can be used to track him?” asked Simmons hopefully, to which Fitz gave her a faint yet hopeful grin. “Oh, good. We’ve been due for some luck.”

 

But despite all this, Daisy started to feel angry tears pricking at the back of her eyes. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair on them and it most certainly wasn’t fair on Coulson and May. _Charles and Heidi._ After everything those two had been through — after every cruel thing _she_ had put them through — they deserved peace. They deserved happiness. Not to be dragged back into a world of spies and aliens and terrorists. And now they were lost, held hostage by the ruthless Watchdogs who, she was fairly certain, wouldn’t give a damn about the fact that they had now captured two very ordinary civilians that had no ties to S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore. Daisy felt her stomach lurch at the thought of what the Watchdogs would do to them and the need to find them reached an almost hysterical pitch inside her.

 

Daisy took a deep breath and slowly brought herself back to her centre. A freakout — as wonderfully indulgent as it might feel — would help nobody. She touched a finger to her ear, turning on her comms.

 

“Mack? They’re gone. Fesi was here and he took them.”

 

“What?” exploded Mack on the other end of the comm. “Fesi, again? That guy is really beginning to piss me off.”

 

“Well, I still don’t think he’s working for the Watchdogs under his own free will, so you might want to pull back on that anger a little bit there,” said Daisy. “We’re coming down to you now — we’ve got work to do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Charles dreamed.

 

_He was on a boat, a grey sky above him, a grey, rolling ocean spread wide on either side, a thin sliver of land just visible on the far distance. He was all alone, his boat tiny, rocking deep and steady from side to side, his hands and feet freezing, his hair already wet with sea-spray. Everything seemed quiet and calm, so he couldn’t understand why his heart beat hard and heavy against his ribs, as if he was moments away from full blown panic._

 

_Suddenly, a small black dot appeared in between the rolling waves, a strange break in the otherwise grey scene. It sprung up in one moment and then disappeared behind a wall of water in the next, but a moment was all he needed. He gunned the motor and beelined towards where he had just seen that black spot, his boat rising and dipping several times before that spot once again came into view, much larger this time and now more defined. He could see that it was not just a black smudge; it was a person._

 

_She was laying on her back in an attempt to float and save energy, her arms outstretched, her legs well below the water line; only her face and torso were visible. Her eyes were closed and she looked scarily exhausted._

 

_“Heidi!” he called out._

 

_Melinda …_

 

_Her eyes snapped open and suddenly he was right beside her, reaching down and pulling her freezing, waterlogged body into the boat with him, not caring in the slightest that he was soaked through in an instant. “Are you alright?” he asked, trying to keep the worry out of his voice even as he cradled her close, his hand coming up to gently peal away her wet hair that was sticking to her face._

 

_“I’m pissed,” was her immediate response, and he felt a wave of relief rush though him. “I told you going in with no extraction plan was a bad idea.”_

 

_“You were right,” he agreed. Honestly, he was so happy to have found her after five hours of searching that he was ready to agree with pretty much anything she said. After a few more moments of him just holding her as she tried to catch her breath, he spoke again, trying to keep his voice as casual as possible. “So … one a scale of one to ten, how well do you think our first mission went?”_

 

_She burst out laughing, weak laughter but still there, and he knew that she would somehow pay him back for that comment in the future. And that was fine, because now there would be a future._

 

_They could sort all this out later …_

 

_Later …_

 

_Slowly he became aware of a throbbing pain in his head, and even as he held Heidi closer she started to fade and disappear and soon he was holding nothing but air …_

 

…

 

Charles groaned as he slowly came back to himself, the strange, grey dream half forgotten before he was even able to open his eyes. There was a burning, throbbing pain at the side of his head and he gingerly lifted one hand to prod at the source of this. But before he could touch whatever was there, small, cool fingers gently wrapped around his own, halting any further movement.

 

“You don’t want to do that.” Heidi’s soft, soothing voice whispered from somewhere above him. “The bleeding stopped ages ago, but there’s a pretty nasty looking lump there now.”

 

Charles managed to crack open his eyes slightly, squinting through the light that led to a fresh wave of pain that rolled around inside his skull. Just above him, Heidi’s concerned face swam into focus and despite everything that had happened, despite his own situation, the very first thing he thought was, _‘Wow. She is so beautiful.’_

 

However, as he blinked heavily and fully woke up he noticed another thing. “Are you bleeding?”

 

For a second Heidi looked confused, then she lifted her hand to the cut on her chin almost as if she had forgotten about it. “Oh, this? It’s nothing.”

 

“It’s not nothing,” said Charles, struggling to sit up. It was only then that he realised what position he was actually in — stretched out on the floor with his head pillowed in Heidi’s lap. Before he could fully appreciate this Heidi reached out to grasp at his shoulders to help him sit up, and a small selfish part of him bitterly regretted moving before he was aware of where he was. Still, none of that mattered as he turned to face Heidi and saw the dried blood on her chin and on the cuff of one of her sleeves, her drawn features, and her red-rimmed eyes that betrayed the fact that she had been crying. Without even thinking he reached out and gently cupped her chin, his fingers lightly brushing around the wound while he took extreme care not to actually touch it.

 

“Bastards,” he said, his voice soft but full of venom. Some silly, nobel part of him that had seen way too many movies wanted to promise her that he’d get them back for doing this, but logically he knew this would be an impossible promise to make. Round one had proven beyond a doubt that he was no fighter.

 

Heidi’s eyes fluttered shut and Charles’ heart leapt as she lent into his touch before bringing her own hand up to gently lace her fingers through his and pull them away. “It’s just a scratch, Charles. It really doesn’t matter.” She paused and he could see her fighting against some sort of emotion. “Besides,” she said, her voice shaking. “It’s nothing compared to what they did to you.”

 

“Ah, I’m okay,” he shrugged, trying to brush it off, but he could see Heidi wasn’t buying his little act of bravado and given the thread of pain shooting through his head, he probably wasn’t selling it that well anyway.

 

“You’ve been out for more than an hour,” said Heidi flatly. “I was — I was just getting scared that you wouldn’t wake up.”

 

Charles smiled in reassurance, his fingers tightening on hers. “I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Heidi sighed and gestured around them. “ _Neither_ of us are going anywhere until those _people_ let us.” It was only then that Charles started to really take in his surroundings. They seemed to be in a large, circular room with high walls that peaked in a cone shaped roof. All around the top there were open windows that allowed light and fresh air to waft downwards, but they were way out of reach to be of any real interest. In the middle of the room was a bed and just off to one side he spied a bucket. As he drew his mind away from the disturbing implications that brought out he finally noticed the most obvious thing.

 

“There’s no doors.”

 

“No,” said Heidi, looking around helplessly. “This might sound weird, but I think we’re in a silo. And I think that wherever we are, we’re a long way from civilisation. It’s been very quite. I haven’t heard a car or even a plane pass.”

 

“How did we even get here?”

 

“By the same person who took us from my apartment.”

 

Despite his pounding head, Charles managed to piece things together pretty quickly. “He’s an Inhuman, isn’t he?” Heidi nodded. “What on earth is an Inhuman doing, working with the Watchdogs?”

 

Suddenly there was a crackling noise just opposite them on the far side of the room as a tear seemed to form in thin air, stretching until it was wide enough to allow the dark man to quickly step through before it snapped shut behind him. He seemed overtly casual about the whole thing, hands in pockets and pose relaxed, but if Charles wasn’t mistaken there was a faint bruising just below his left eye that hadn’t been there before. “What am I doing with those rabid dogs?” asked the man, clearly showing that he had somehow been listening to their conversation. He shrugged. “As little as humanly possible. Or Inhumanly.”

 

Charles and Heidi were on their feet before the man had even finished speaking, their hands now holding one another with an iron grip as if terrified that they would be wrenched apart at any moment. When they realised that there was no-one else coming Charles could feel Heidi relax a fraction beside him, but he himself would give this freak no such benefit of the doubt. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

 

The man seemed to take absolutely no offence at Charles’ tone. “I’m Eden Fesi, and you might want to save that pissed off attitude for someone who actually deserves it. I’m just the messenger, mate.”

 

“You kidnapped us,” Charles accused. “You’re working with the Watchdogs.”

 

“Under a significant amount of duress, lemme tell ya,” counted Fesi, the words coming out tightly while his calm stance didn’t change. “Trust me — I’ve got more reasons to hate those mongrels than you do. And you’re going to have some pretty decent reasons soon.”

 

“Look,” said Heidi, desperation clear in her voice. “You’ve got to tell them that you’ve got the wrong people! We’re not who they think we are … they’ve made a mistake!”

 

Fesi regarded her with a touch of sadness. “These people are dicks, but they’re not ones to make mistakes.”

 

“Well, tell them this is their first,” said Charles. “I remember what they called us — Phillip-something and —”

 

“Melinda May,” prompted Heidi.

 

_— and just like that he was back on that tiny boat under a grey sky on a grey sea and she was —_

 

“Yes, right,” said Charles haltingly, trying to shake off the remnants of that strange dream he’d been having. Why on earth would that pop up now? God, his head hurt. “That’s not us! I’m Charles Upfield and this is Heidi Wang. There is no — I can’t think of what either of us could’ve possibly done to get the attention of a terrorist group!”

 

By now Fesi wore a small frown, not as if he believed them but more like he was confused by their behaviour. “Look, I just move who they tell me to move. They showed me a picture of you two and basically told me to go fetch … although, it’s not quite that simple. I’m not in any position to tell you if you are who you say you are, or not — I was never given your names. And right now, I’m just here to fetch again.”

 

“We’re not going anywhere with you,” spat Charles.

 

“You’re not gonna get a choice,” countered Fesi. “And when I say ‘you’re not getting a choice’ I do mean you, specifically.” He pointed at Charles. “They want to see you one at a time and I think they flipped a coin and chose you.”

 

Charles felt Heidi’s other hand come up to grip onto the top of his arm as she moved closer to him. “You’re not taking him,” she practically growled.

 

For the first time Fesi seemed a little ruffled, but more annoyed than worried. “Okay, you’re clearly not getting the whole ‘no choice’ thing — and I can totally understand, I was the same in the beginning — but lemme make this clear.” He raised his hand and suddenly all Charles saw was white. Heidi disappeared from his side, the pressure of her touch still lingering but her presence was simply gone — as was the rest of the room. Just as quickly as it came, the white light faded into total darkness and Charles swayed on the spot, disorientated. Once again, rough hands descended out of nowhere to grab onto his arms and manoeuvre him until the backs of his legs hit something and he was unceremoniously dumped into a waiting chair.

 

He gripped the arm rests of the chair tightly as his head throbbed, the sudden change from light to dark making him dizzy. As his eyes had adjusted to the dank lighting he noticed that he was now in a fairly large room, something that looked almost like the inside of a barn. There seemed to be various boxes piled up all around him, a large, armoured truck at the far end, and a decent amount of firearms just laying about. He twisted in his chair a bit and saw two large men — this time without masks — standing a little ways behind him, presumedly there to stop any escape attempts. He turned back around and caught a glimpse of Fesi leaning against one of the box piles, arms crossed, his face carefully blank. And finally his attention was drawn back to the front again.

 

A tall, grey haired man strolled casually towards him, a curiously amused expression curling his lips ever so slightly. Charles instinctively felt a warning spike shoot up inside him and he pushed himself further back in his chair as the man stopped inches in front of him.

 

“Phil Coulson,” the man nodded in greeting. He gave him an appraising look and then shook his head in wonder. “You know, one of these days I’m going to hear a report that you’re dead and you know what? It might actually be true.”

 

 _Oh God, here we go again_ , thought Charles as he took a deep, steading breath and braced himself before he once again started to explain: “Look. There’s been a massive mistake. I’m not who you think I am, neither is Heidi Wang. I’m Charles Upfield and —”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard all about your new civilian personalities,” said the man, waving a dismissive hand. He pulled up another chair and sat opposite hime. “But you can drop the act now, Phil. No more hiding.”

 

Charles started to feel desperate. His aching head was now shooting worrying spikes of pain beneath his skull. “I’m not hiding anything. I’m not — we’re not these people. Please! You have to believe me!” And as the man’s amusement seemed to fade and he leaned in closer to really look at Charles for the first time, some part of him started to wildly hope that he’d be able to convince him of their innocence before Heidi would ever have to face them, that somehow, after all this, they would realise their mistake and just let them go.

 

Charles swallowed and forced himself to keep still, to maintain eye-contact as the man searched his face for … for what, he didn’t know. He seemed to find something as he finally let loose a low, “Huh,” and leaned back into his chair. He started to stroke the bottom of his chin in thought as he appraised Charles.

 

When he at last he spoke, Charles felt unnerved by the cold interest that laced his words. “You’re really not putting this on, are you? You’re good … but no-one’s this good. I mean, you didn’t even react to miraculous recovery.” Charles didn’t know what to say to that, but this didn’t seem to bother the man. He left his seat momentarily to retrieve an electronic pad, which he began to swiftly flick through. Without turning to Fesi he then issued an order. “I think we’re going to need the good doctor a little earlier then expected,” he said, attention clearly focused elsewhere, but Fesi seemed to understand as he gave the man a quick, sullen look before suddenly disappeared into nothingness. The man turned back to Charles. “Okay, I’ll play along,” he said before thrusting the pad into Charles’ unwilling hands. “Hello _Charles_. I’m Felix Blake. In a former life you and I knew each other. Oh, I would never have called us friends, just colleagues, but we got along well enough — well, until one of your little missions put me in a wheelchair. And then, you know, S.H.I.E.L.D. imploded and it was a whole thing.”

 

While he spoke Charles finally managed to look down at what the pad was showing him. And froze. And then he forced himself to go through image after image of the unbelievable. Pictures. Documents. Surveillance footage. All of him.

 

All completely foreign. All never before seen.

 

All so painfully familiar.

 

 _This can’t be happening. This can’t be real._ Suddenly a slew of new images flashed in front of him but this time it wasn’t from the pad, but from his own mind. _Beach. Whiskey. A red car. Hula doll. Plane. Pack of cards. A fight. Shaky hands. Cello. Glasses. A silver dress._

 

The wave of image and the strange and varied emotions that were associated with them made his already sore head swim … but nothing made sense. It was as though his brain was trying to remember something that simply wasn’t there anymore. To try and steady himself Charles looked back down at the pad. And he nearly dropped it. Heidi. But not Heidi, not as he knew her. She seemed … hardened. Resistant. Sharp in ways that suggested that the world did that to her, as opposed to being her natural state. It _was_ Heidi, but it _wasn’t_. There was something deeply sad about this woman he now looked upon.

 

Charles finally found his voice. “S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

 

“Oh, yes,” said Blake, utterly unconcerned about Charles’ distress. “You used to work for them — used to head it, actually. I mean _this_ ,” he gestured to all of Charles as if there was something wrong with him. “This has S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fingerprints all over it. I know their retirement plans aren’t great, but this here is just _cold_ , even for them. I know they’ve got the tech for this, but I never thought they’d do it to you - again! Re-writing your memories? Sticking you in some civilian life? And doing the same to Agent May, too, I mean …” he trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief.

 

 _May. Agent May. Melinda …_ There was now a ringing echoing through Charles’ head as he struggled to absorb this new information. “You’re … you’re saying we were … spies?”

 

“And they’ve made you a bit slow, too,” added Blake with false sympathy. “I gotta say, this whole thing really messes up my plans — well, half of them — but I’m nothing if not adaptable.”

 

Something Blake said came bouncing back to the front of his mind. “Wait! You said … you were in a wheelchair?”

 

Blake grinned, the expression all teeth. “Well, while I don’t much care for Inhumans, I can admit that they do have some useful properties.” Suddenly there was a crackle and Fesi reappeared, this time with a new man in tow, a tall, skinny white man with greying hair and a scraggly beard, who was looking around himself in a fearful, skittish manner. “Doctor Radcliffe!” Blake greeted him with a kindness that wasn’t to be believed. “I’d like you to meet Phil — or Charles — or whatever he’s calling himself these days.”

 

The new man — Radcliffe — eyed Charles warily for a moment before saying in a thick Sottish accent, “You look like you’re as surprised to be here as I am. Really, Blake, is there anyone working for you that _wasn’t_ dragged here against their own free will?”

 

“The ones with the guns,” said Blake, not missing a beat. “How’s our patient?”

 

Radcliffe gave a theatrical sigh and waved his hands around. “Stable. Barely.” When Blake gave him a disapproving look he quickly followed with, “Hey, I’m working with - with _garden shed_ equipment, and doing the best I can, which, might I say is still pretty impressive given the circumstances!”

 

But while Radcliffe was waffling on, Charles’ attention was fixed on Fesi. The young man’s casual sullenness had subtly changed into a quite rage. Whoever they were talking about meant a good deal to him.

 

Blake either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Yes doctor, I know all about your continuing brilliance. But, unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to access S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resources as we’d hoped.”

 

“What? Why not?” asked Radcliffe. “I thought you said you were getting former agents who get you in.”

 

“I have former agents and while they’re in no condition to help us in that way, they still have their uses.” Blake nodded to Charles. “That one was injected with alien serum that brought him back from the dead.”

 

And Charles had thought that this day couldn’t get any weirder. The pain inside his skull seemed to be pushing on the back of his eyes and suddenly the bizarre thought of _‘Let me die!’_ screamed across his mind.

 

Radcliffe seemed to take this a little too easily in his stride. Charles wondered what other strange things he had seen by this point. “Ah. Okay. Now, while I have heard rumours of such a thing, you’ve got to understand that without access to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s databanks I’m pretty much working blind. Reverse engineering a biochemical solution is difficult enough without the added complexities of it being alien in nature and having already resided in a host for well over three years, so I can’t —”

 

“I know all this!” interrupted Blake, his voice raised to nearly a shout, his eyes now squeezed shut against Radcliffe’s incessant ramblings. He took a steadying breath before he continued in a softer tone. “I know all this. Do what you can. Start now.”

 

Radcliffe seemed appropriately cowed and simply nodded, lips pressed firmly shut. Fesi stepped forward jerking his head towards Charles in a ‘get up’ motion. He shakily got to his feet and braced himself, shutting his eyes against what he knew was coming next.

 

“Yeah, smart choice,” commented Fesi before once again that hot, white light wrapped around him.

 

Even though he expected it, it was still unnerving to open his eyes and realise that he was yet again in a completely different location, alone with Fesi and Radcliffe in what looked like a large, disused hospital room. There were a few dirty looking stretcher beds, long tables full of endless amount of ageing equipment, and a large dividing screen blocking the furthermost corner from view. When Fesi ignored both of them and hurried towards that screen, disappearing behind it, Charles’ eyes darted to the door, something Radcliffe noticed. He chuckled darkly as he went to one of the benches and started fidgeting with the equipment.

 

“No, sorry, there’s no way out of here either,” he said. “The only way we get in or out is through Fesi, and the only time he moves us is when Blake tells him to.”

 

“He’s Inhuman,” said Charles numbly. He couldn’t think anymore. He could only react.

 

“Obviously.”

 

“But he’s working with the Watchdogs? Even though he could disappear to anywhere, at any moment, and never be found again?”

 

Radcliffe glanced up at Charles, and then nodded towards the screen. “We’re all here under some form of coercion or other. But Fesi’s is a little more … nobel, I think.”

 

Charles frowned slightly before making his way to the other side of the screen. He drew in a sharp breath when he saw Fesi now sitting solum and stone faced at the bedside of a young woman. Whoever she was, it was clear that she was deeply unwell, eyes closed and sunken into her face, her thin arms bruised by needles, her oxygen being deliver via a mask where each breath sounded like a struggle. As he watched he saw Fesi ever so gently take her limp hand into his own, the young man now absolutely bursting with worry and care and just so much love.

 

And like a sudden wave washing over him Charles felt like he had been in Fesi’s situation before. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell him that he knew how it felt to watch someone you loved being so very slowly ripped away from you, minute by minute, breath by unsteady breath. But the words stuck in his throat. He _had not_ experience anything like this. He knew he had not. _He knew …_

 

He knew nothing. He had false memories. He knew nothing.

 

_He’d seen her wounded before. Many, many times. Cuts, bruises, abrasions, blood warm and slick across her smooth skin, her features tight as she controlled her pain, a sly grin waiting in answer to any further questioning of her injuries. He’d never liked to see her hurt, but knew it was part of the job. All just part of the job. Yes, he’d seen her hurt many times before. But not like this. Never like this._

 

_There was no blood. She was clean and laid out nicely, and quiet. All too quiet. Still and pale, sunken and hollow, and he knew as he sat by her side that he was beginning to resemble her in more than one way. Before he’d kept his feelings about her tightly sealed away from public view, but now he grasped her hand and stroked her hair and whispered desperate pleas against her unhearing ears without any regard as to who might be watching. Because she was slipping away. She was leaving in painfully slow increments and there was nothing he could do about it._

 

_Her name was Melinda May and he loved her with the whole of his broken heart._

 

And for an instant, like a switch flipping between the two, Charles suddenly saw himself as another man. Another life. And one constant. Her.

 

He was startled back into the present when he finally noticed something odd about the woman’s hands. Her fingers were all wrong, elongated and wiry, like a Halloween puppet. Without thinking he recoiled back and breathed out a soft, _“What …?”_ , causing Fesi to finally notice his presence.

 

“Her name is Kalikya,” he said lowly, turning his gaze back to her face. “And she’s Inhuman, just like me. Well, maybe a little better at it,” he said, a ghost of a smile wandering over his face. “She’s been Inhuman longer, knew more about it. This … this whole thing was a surprise. I mean, all I did was get some fish and chips after work and then …” He blew out a sigh and hung his head. “Ever since then it seems like everyone is either chasing me, or drugging me up, experimenting on me, using me … until I met Kalikya. She’s the first one who actually cared about what was happening to me. To actually help me. But then again, that’s just her nature. And I have a feeling that was her nature even before she went though the mist.”

 

As he spoke Charles noticed that some sort of calm had descend on him and the thumping inside his head seemed to fade a little. Without realising he let loose a sigh. Fesi looked up knowingly.

 

“That’s Kalikya. Even when she’s …” he trailed off and swallowed hard. “Even like this, she helps. She _heals_. That’s her gift. She can cure anyone of anything. Like that bastard, Blake. He captured her because he wanted to walk again, kept her half out of her mind on drugs so she could heal any of his fascist lackies when they got hurt. Just being around her is enough to calm, to sooth, to just … just to make everything better.” Fesi’s voice became more and more ragged with each word, and Charles could tell that he was only just keeping himself together.

 

“How did you end up here?” asked Charles.

 

Fesi drew in a deep sigh. “We were supposed to be in hiding, but I guess either they hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. or there’s someone on the inside who doesn’t like us very much. Doesn’t really matter, in the end. They got to her first and when I cut a portal to get her back, they were waiting for me. At first I thought they were just going to kill us — that’s their thing, isn’t it? — but … it’s so much worse. Oh, they may hate and fear us, but they still want to use us.”

 

Charles felt a terrible nausea settle over him as he figured it out.

 

Fesi continued. “They’re using her to keep me under control, pumping her full of God-knows what. And I can’t just take her away … I’ve tried! But something goes wrong every time and she starts dying. I don’t know what it is, something to do with whatever they’ve put in her system. She needs it to live now, even though it’s slowly killing her! But I gotta leave her here,” he gritted his teeth. “And do whatever they want, whenever they want, or they’ll miss her next dosage and then …” he trailed off, unable to even think it. “But even then, even after all that … a few days ago, something went wrong. Kalikya wasn’t able to move much but she was awake, talking … even smiling through all this. But then … she just didn’t wake up. And she hasn’t since.” At that point Fesi couldn’t disguise his distress anymore as he leant down and gently placed a kiss on the back of her Inhuman hand.

 

Charles could hear Radcliffe clattering about and humming to himself, but it all seemed like it was coming from far, far away. As he looked down at these two people, both in so much pain, he was acutely aware that these were the first Inhumans he’d ever encountered. Inhumans he had hated and feared on instinct, on other people’s hearsay. All those stories of how dangerous, how unnatural, how vile these new creatures were ran around his head in an instant, and then faded away to nothing more than to two young people who were being hurt, abused, wrung out … just because of who they were.

 

Charles despised himself.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “Really … I am.”

 

Fesi kept his head bent over Kalikya’s hand a moment longer before he looked up. “Yeah. So am I.” Fesi motioned for Charles to turn around, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when he realised that Radcliffe was now standing right behind him.

 

“I’m going to need you to lay down here, now,” said Radcliffe.

 

“Why?” asked Charles suspiciously. “Where do I fit into all this?”

 

Radcliffe looked a unsure of where to start, and his speech came out a little jumbled. “Well … we were hoping you or Agent May could help us access S.H.I.E.L.D’s research — you see, Kalikya’s dying and we don’t really have the time to … but, anyway. The Watchdogs wanted her incapacitated, not dead, but they’ve obviously misjudged that and now they need a cure for the person who’s been curing them. And that’s you.”

 

Charles shook his head slowly, lost. “I still don’t …”

 

Fesi broke in, voice now hard. “We need a cure. S.H.I.E.L.D. has a cure. We couldn’t get to S.H.I.E.L.D. We _could_ get to you. You’ve _had_ the cure. We need to see if we can get the cure out of you.”

 

Charles felt an icy finger of fear run up his spine. “How?”

 

Radcliffe sighed and stepped back to reveal a low laying bed surrounded by a ton of medical equipment — and needles. “We’re going to need your blood. A lot of your blood.”

 

* * *

 

 

Heidi was so very close to screaming.

 

No. Forget screaming. She was about to have a full blown, very violent panic attack. She wanted to punch something — or someone, _anyone_ — kick at the single bed, throw the few things that were there across this tiny circular room that she’d been pacing for hours on end. Hours! It was now dark, but their captors hadn’t thought it necessary to provide them with a even a torch. However, it seemed like there was a full moon outside and enough light was filtering in through those high windows to illuminate her way.

 

Since Fesi had taken Charles away, literally ripped him out of her very arms, she’d been left alone. The entire day. It had now been just over twenty hours and she was incredibly thirsty, sick with hunger and fear, and making what felt like her millionth round of the small room. A part of her knew that she needed to sit down, maybe try to sleep and conserve her energy for later, but she just couldn’t. Her mind felt like a horribly twisted mess of highly strung wires just waiting to snap and in turn her body, awash with adrenaline, just wouldn’t keep still.

 

Straight after Fesi had lifted his hand and Charles’ warm, solid figure was lost to a wave of white light, Heidi had let loose a short scream of pure anger and fear. The fact that he had quite literally slipped through her fingers was so surreal and terrifying that Heidi had actually felt a little faint. At first, not knowing what else to do, she shouted at the emptiness around her, demanding that he be ‘ _brought back here right now!_ ’, making various imaginative yet ultimately empty threats if he wasn’t. She’d paced the room, yelling at whoever might be listening, finally ending up seated on the thin mattress with her head in her hands, her teeth digging into her bottom lip to hold back the sobs that threatened to overcome her as she accepted that even if they were listening, they certainly weren’t going to bring him back.

 

Was he ever coming back?

 

Heidi needed something to distract her from that odious thought. She couldn’t stand this place without him, she couldn’t even stand the thought of the _world_ without Charles, and she desperately needed a distraction. But their captors obviously hadn’t cared about that. Aside from the furniture, there was nothing. In the hours that followed Heidi tried her best to busy herself in futile attempts at an escape as she’d tipped the wire-framed bed over and tried to form some sort of ladder to the upper windows — as task she knew was obviously destined to fail, but at least it gave her _something_ to do. She’d traced every inch of the metal frame, wondering if she could somehow break it and make some sort of weapon out of it, turned the mattress over and over, shook out the one thin blanket. Then she’d made the bed up all over again. And moved it. And moved it back. She’d investigated the bucket in the far corner but so far her boredom hadn’t led to her picking that up just yet, and her dignity had stopped her from using it.

 

Not that she really needed to. As the fear dropped, other bodily complaints made themselves known. Wherever she was, she’d arrived at what appeared to be early morning, even though when they’d been in her apartment it was just after midday. When the agents had picked her up from work she hadn’t yet had lunch and now her small breakfast seemed like a lifetime ago. By the time the sun set she knew she’d been over twenty-fours without a proper meal, and she was beginning to feel it. She had tried to sleep, laid down and closed her eyes. But just as she’d started to drift off a sudden, horrid image of Charles being shot in the head by one of the Watchdogs burst through her imagination and she’d sprung up, gasping. She hadn’t tried to sleep since.

 

She’d cried more than once. A few hot tears every now and then, borne of fear and frustration that had no other outlet at that moment. And then, right as she was beginning to feel at the very end of her rope, she’d paused a moment in a patch of moonlight, lowered her head, and prayed.

 

_Please God, bring him back to me._

 

A crack of light nearly gave her a heart attack, while at the same time her sense of relief made her weak at the knees. But her relief was short lived. Through the light she could see the silhouette of three men, the man in the middle very clearly being supported by those on either side of him, his arms draped over their shoulders, his head hanging low. And as they slowly stepped out of the light Heidi could see that the man in the middle was indeed Charles.

 

She felt her empty stomach twist as she rushed towards them, watching as Fesi and a new stranger proceeded to dump him onto the bed. She dropped to her knees beside him and felt her heart plummet as she took in his pallid appearance and the two thick pressure bandages on each elbow that still couldn’t quite keep the stain of blood away. For some reason the portal this time remained open and the white light that washed over his features made him look … dead.

 

“What did you do to him?” she asked, an anger unlike anything she’d ever felt before flooding through her. “What the hell did you do?!”

 

“My job,” snapped the new man, exhaustion and frustration etched on his face. He jerked his head towards Fesi and quickly left through the portal. Fesi, however, paused a moment.

 

“I’ll be back in a sec with some food,” he said quietly. Heidi just glared at him until he disappeared, taking the light with him.

 

As soon as he was gone Heidi’s hands flew to Charles’ face, tapping gently but insistently. “Charles? Charles? Please wake up. Please! You have to be alright …”

 

A soft groan as he came to was one of the most wonderful sounds she’d ever heard, and as he reached his hand up she quickly grasped it and held it close to her heart. “Heidi? I feel terrible.”

 

Heidi quickly dropped a kiss on his crown, partly from sheer relief and partly to hide her own tears, and as she pulled back she managed a smile when she saw him looking up at her. Aside from his weakened state and the bandages on his arms he actually didn’t seem too worse for wear, but she still needed to know. “Charles, what happened?”

 

He gave a weary sigh and closed his eyes again, although his fingers tightened on hers, letting her know that he was still there. “Apparently there’s some special chemical in my blood that they need.”

 

“So what? They’re draining you for it?” she asked, her outrage building.

 

“Nearly.” His eyes opened a fraction and he smiled slightly as if making a joke, but Heidi couldn’t see the humour. “Doctor Radcliffe, he’d take a bit and then leave me with Kalikya for a while to recover. She’s another Inhuman,” he said, answering her questioning look. “With the ability to heal people. Even being in her presence can help. So they’d take some blood, let me heal up a little, take some more. But the Watchdogs have hurt her, badly. She’s dying, Heidi. She’s so young and she’s dying because of what these people have done to her.” Heidi was a little shocked at the pain in Charles’ voice, the wet brightness in his eyes. “It isn’t right.”

 

“I know, I know,” she whispered soothingly. It seemed like the days toll was beginning to weigh heavily on him, too.

 

There was another crack of light and suddenly Fesi was back, weighed down by plastic bags from which that heady aroma of takeout instantly made Heidi’s mouth water despite herself. He also had bottles of water, a thermos, and a few battery powered lights which he began to set up wordlessly around their little prison before circling back to the bed. Heidi watched him with a hard stare the whole time.

 

Charles must’ve noticed as Heidi suddenly felt him squeeze her hand to get her attention. “Hey. Don’t be too hard on him, okay? Might sound a bit hard to believe but trust me, he’s got a worse deal out of this than us.”

 

“Oh, really?” snapped Heidi without thinking, but as she looked into Fesi’s face, really looked at him for the first time, she felt a twinge of shame for her knee-jerk response.

 

“It’s fine,” said Fesi, in a manner that suggested that he really didn’t care what she thought of him. He handed her the food and she took it silently. He nodded at Charles. “We’ve been feeding him, keeping his liquids up, so he should be mostly fine. Sorry for not getting to you sooner. They didn’t want us to.” Fesi shrugged. “You’ll see me when they next want to see you.” And he disappeared through another doorway of light.

 

But then something odd happened. Every other time Heidi had watched Fesi’s portals close they did so smoothly and evenly. This time, the closing portal fluctuated wildly for a moment, rapidly going in and out like a record skipping, before a crackle of blue electricity ran through the white light for a instant and it finally snapped shut.

 

“Did you see …?” began Heidi, frowning, before she realised that Charles’ eyes were still shut.

 

“Hm?”

 

“Oh … nothing. Just … his exit looked different this time. Didn’t seem normal.”

 

Charles opened his eyes to this. “And what exactly is normal?”

 

Heidi smiled despite of herself, just as her stomach gave an overly loud protest over the fact that she was still just smelling the food, rather than eating it. Without hesitation she quickly dug into her meal, not the nicest takeaway she’d ever had but certainly the most welcome. As she ate Charles drifted in and out of a doze, seemingly content to just be by her side while every now and then he let the back of his hand run lazily down her bare arm that was propped on the side of the bed. Whether this was to comfort her or himself, she didn’t know, nor care.

 

After polishing off the hot takeaway and downing two bottles of water, Heidi checked the rest of the supplies and determined that most of them were energy bars. Not perfect, but still better than starving. With a sigh she turned her attention back to Charles, and was surprised to find him watching her.

 

“Did you ever wonder why got along so well?” he asked suddenly. “How, from the very first, we were always so in sync?”

 

Heidi blinked. “No. Not really. I believe that’s just how it is with some people. People say it all the time … sometimes it’s like meeting someone from a past life.”

 

Charles was very still now, staring intently at her face as if trying to see something beyond it. “A past life,” he echoed. “I think that’s exactly it.”

 

Something about the way he was acting was making Heidi incredibly nervous, as if they were about to open a box that should be left shut. “Charles … what exactly did they do to you?”

 

He looked incredibly sad. “They showed me … documents. Photos. Hard evidence. Everything they’ve been saying, everything about us not being the people we think we are … Heidi, it’s all —”

 

“No.” Heidi looked away. She felt sick. That nervous little warning in the pit of her stomach quickly bloomed into total panic. She felt trapped. She felt wrong. She felt like there was a looming wall rising up within her mind, vast, unbreachable, holding back something terrible …

 

“Heidi?”

 

“Yes!” she said, snapping her attention back to Charles. “Yes, _Heidi_. That’s my name. I am real person and I have a real life, and everything I think or feel or do, those are all my decisions, Charles! I can’t … I don’t …”

 

“Hey, hey …” murmured Charles as he slowly sat up, reaching out to her. “You _are_ real. And so am I. I’m just saying that our reality … isn’t quite what we thought.”

 

“God, Charles, what does that even mean?” she asked, exasperated. “Why has your tune on this changed so much?”

 

Charles paused a moment. “That Inhuman they brought me to, to heal? Kalikya? Well, she wasn’t just mending my body. She was mending my mind, too.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with your mind,” said Heidi, frightened.

 

“No, there kinda is,” said Charles with a soft, sad smile. “And it’s been like that for a while now. Feelings about places and people that come out of nowhere. Dreams that make me wake up from the sheer fright they bring, but are forgotten in a moment. Scraps of knowledge that doesn’t make sense … I know how to fix a cars engine, but for the life of me I could never remember when I learnt that from. It’s like trying to remember a song from long ago, a face in a crowd. But being around Kalikya all day … some of that is finally starting to make sense. I am Charles Upfield, I am totally sure about that. But I was also someone before. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s the truth.”

 

“Charles, you are genuinely beginning to scare me,” said Heidi, feeling her veneer of calm cracking.

 

“I’m scared, too,” he said, and she saw the truth of it shinning in his eyes. “A part of me feels like I’m going nuts. I’ve spent half of today either having an actual mad scientist siphoned me off, or sitting next to a comatose woman whose magical healing abilities are making me remember things that, to my mind, never actually happened. Of course I’m scared. But through all of this there’s been one solid constant I’ve been holding onto.”

 

Heidi could feel her heart racing. “What?”

 

“You,” he said simply. “You say it’s like we knew each other in another life and I believe that’s true … though maybe not quite in the way the crystal loving hippies meant it. Because no matter which set of memories comes up — my own, whole and complete, or fractions from this other man’s life — no matter which side they come from they always have you in it. You are you were … you as you are. I think we’ve been in each other’s lives for a lot longer than year. And I think, deep down … you know that too.”

 

Instinctively she wanted to deny it. She could feel that wall in her mind pressing down on her, an incoherent threat warning her that she didn’t want to know what was beyond it. But still, despite everything, she knew deep in her heart that what he was saying was true. And suddenly, as if a simple acceptance of the situation, if not total understanding of it, was all she needed, she felt a calm wash across her. She could still feel that wall in her mind but now instead of a looming horror it took on the properties of something more like a shield. In some vague, unconscious way she’d always known about that wall, but somehow had never questioned it. The only time she’d come close to really acknowledging it was when … was when she’d been around Charles. She’d always felt a connection to this mild, cheerful teacher that went well beyond a simple friendship, beyond a years acquaintance. A profound connection. And when those deeper feelings had arisen it had seemed like she could hear faint whispers coming from beyond that shield in her mind. A warning. A welcome.

 

She was quiet for so long that she could tell that Charles was getting anxious, but he kept still, allowing her the space to work through the impossible. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and her eyes lowered.

 

“You know, I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time,” she said.

 

Charles couldn’t quite help his small grin. “Oh, really?”

 

“Hm,” she hummed, her own little smile mirroring his. But then it faded. “But I didn’t. So many nights I wanted you to stay over. But I never asked. It was always as if there was something holding me back, some little voice telling me ‘no, not now’. And I could never figure out why.” Unconsciously she started to move closer to him, tilting her face to meet his.

 

“You think you know now?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

 

“Yes,” she breathed. “Because if we did know each other in that past life, then I know we never went this far.” And then she closed the last piece of distance and gently kissed him.

 

When she pulled away he looked a little dazed, and a little confused. “Yeah … not to take away from the moment or anything but … I kinda think we did do that.”

 

“No.” Despite the word, she didn’t pull away, instead reaching up to cup the side of his face. “No, I don’t think it was like this.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like this isn’t something new. Like we’ve been through years —” _yes,_ a voice inside her whispered _, somehow it does feel like years_ , “ — of denial and waiting. I don’t want to start slow, Charles. I want to pretend like we’re already in the middle. And I was worried that would scare you off.”

 

Charles grinned, curling his hands around the back of her neck, his thumb brushing across the hollow of her throat as this time he was the one who closed the distance. “You couldn’t scare me off if you tried.”

 

As he kissed her she felt a deep well of love spring up inside her and on any other day the intensity of that love would’ve frightened her. It had frightened her. The connection between them was strong, so strong as to seem almost unnatural. It never really made sense to her and that combined with the faint sense of fear as she strayed closer to that wall in her mind had always held her back. Not anymore.

 

They finally broke the kiss, their breathing deep and hot. “I’m still not sold on the whole thing,” whispered Heidi. “But I believe in this.”

 

“Me too, absolutely,” nodded Charles. “But … regardless … I think I need to lay down again …”

 

Suddenly Heidi noticed his hands shaking from fatigue and just as quickly they started she pulled away, gently laying him back down on the narrow bed before, after a moments hesitation, she joined him. The two lay facing each other, hands entwined, legs tangled, the lack of space between them a form of intimacy rather than intrusion and as the silence from the world around them deepened to a silence between them Charles quietly spoke the words they were both dreading.

 

“I still don’t know how we’re getting out of here,” he said softly.

 

“Together,” answered Heidi firmly. “If nothing else, that’s a certainty.”

 

Charles smiled. “Together.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is going to be longer than expected. Hope you're all okay with that.
> 
> And apologies for the wait. And biggest thank you-s too! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thus ends part one of two.
> 
> In case you were wondering, the Inhuman at the end is Eden Fesi, otherwise known as Manifold who can bend time and space and make portals. He was teased in season 3 and I'm still waiting!
> 
> My original plan was to kill both May and Coulson in chapter 27 of S&S, have the team try to resurrect them, have it go very wrong, and then wipe both their memories and leave them with new personas to meet again in the outside world. So this is sort of that, but condensed. I hope you enjoyed that!
> 
> And man oh man ... LMD better lead to some Philinda because I can't take the suspense anymore!!! (That's why they kissed here - at least this I can control!)


End file.
